


These Paper Hearts

by salmoncat



Series: Paper Hearts [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 1940s, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Blood, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Canon-Typical Violence, Captain America: The First Avenger, Captivity, Childhood Friends to Lovers, Declarations Of Love, Epistolary, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Idiots in Love, Love Letters, M/M, Minor Character Death, Nightmares, Oblivious Steve Rogers, Pining, Pneumonia, Protective Bucky Barnes, Slow Burn, World War II, grand canyon - Freeform, uso tour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:14:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 70,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27538159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salmoncat/pseuds/salmoncat
Summary: Steve and Bucky have been orbiting each other their whole lives. When Bucky gets drafted to serve in the 107th, they end up on different continents and their worlds begin to fracture. They turn to letters in a desperate attempt to communicate to each other all the things they’ve never quite been able to say.The only thing keeping Bucky going is the thought of Steve, who claims to be safe at home and working as an artist for the wildly popular Captain America stage show. Unbeknownst to him, Steve’s involvement in the show goes far deeper than sketching out posters and designing propaganda. As untruths begin to pile up on both sides of their correspondence, Steve and Bucky are forced to reckon with the all the changes the war has wrought on their lives, either learning to weather them together or else crumbling under the weight of everything they've left unsaid.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: Paper Hearts [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2166984
Comments: 26
Kudos: 75





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for checking us out! Before you read, make sure you're alright with some canon divergence (and can suspend your disbelief about the speed of the US Postal Service). :)

The idea that life was never fair was of course based on the notion that it _should_ be, that every person the whole world over deserved everything they worked for and then some. Steve had always believed in fair, no matter how much life threw at him. A childhood full of doctor’s visits his Ma couldn’t afford, of picking fights on the playground and later dragging himself half dead out of back alleys, of spending hours trying to convince every army recruiter on this side of the city to give him a chance—all in the name of making things more fair. 

Standing there in the kitchen of the little apartment, watching the water run aimlessly down the sink and the steam rise from the freshly brewed pot of coffee still clutched in his left hand, listening to the sound of Bucky’s door creak open and shut and the soft click of his new army-issued boots on the wood floor, Steve finally realized that fair shouldn’t even be part of the equation. Life was just a competition, one that Bucky would always win and Steve would never admit that he had lost. 

“Hey.” Bucky spoke up quietly from a point behind Steve, who forced himself not to jump because even though he had been distracted he was well aware his friend was approaching. “How do I...do I look okay?”

Steve slammed the coffee pot down onto the counter, only vaguely aware of the new scalding spatters painting his arm. “I’m sure you look fine, Buck.” Steve thought if he didn’t grip the edges of the counter, he might start to float away or slide down through the floor or something equally ridiculous.

Bucky’s new boots clicked heavily on the floor as he moved around the counter and stopped just behind Steve. “Right. Yeah.” Steve could see Bucky’s hand extend towards the abandoned coffee pot, and quickly closed his own fingers around the handle, watching while Buck stepped back hesitantly. He could feel the weight of Bucky’s eyes on his back, and stayed firmly facing the running sink until Bucky spoke again. “So, this...this is it, I guess. For a while, at least.”

The handle in Steve’s hand felt too hot all of a sudden. “You want a mug or are you just gonna go straight from the pot?”

“What? What’s got you all piss and vinegar?”

Bucky’s incredulous tone rubbed Steve all kinds of wrong, but it still didn’t hold a candle to the sight that greeted him when he finally turned around to tear into Buck properly. Any angry retort died on the tip of Steve’s tongue when he saw his friend standing there, all wrapped up in army green, looking every bit the soldier save for the hat settled half sideways on his head. 

“It’s your hat. All crooked.” Steve sidestepped around Buck to get to the counter, where a mug already sat half filled with cream and sugar. “Can’t have you going off like that.”

“Really? That’s why you haven’t been able to look me in the eye all week? ‘Cause of my hat?” Bucky’s frustration was overshadowed by the hesitant way he reached up and tried uselessly to center his hat.

“The draft notice, the train ticket in your pocket.” Steve handed Bucky his mug and tried to convey just a bit of contrition in his expression. “The hat.”

It seemed to work for a moment, as Buck half grinned and accepted the mug easily. “Well, ‘Least one of those I can fix, right?”

“Right.” They both stood there staring until Steve couldn’t take the full force of Bucky’s eyes on him any longer. “Coffee’s gonna get cold, Barnes.”

“Yes, Ma.” Steve snorted when Bucky rolled his eyes and took a long sip from his cup, walking over to their little dining room and taking a seat. “Would you…or, _do_ you want to come with me? See me off? I’m gonna have to go places no man should ever have to— _Jersey_ , for god’s sake, Steve.”

As much as Steve had been prepared for the question, and as much as he had practiced telling Bucky exactly _why_ he couldn’t watch him get on that train because if he only just walked out the door, Steve could always believe he’d walk right back in at any time, he couldn’t seem to find a single word to say. Instead, he walked over to Bucky’s side and stilled, pointedly looking somewhere above his head. “Your hat’s still crooked.” It only took a second to reach out and gently tip the hat to the center of Bucky’s head, but the walk to the sink to clean up the coffee pot stretched on forever. 

“Huh. Thanks. Good looking out. I’m a soldier now, guess I’ve gotta look the part—and hey, I’ve heard that ladies love a man in uniform.” 

If Steve had been thinking less about damned trains he might have picked up on that stinging edge that meant Buck was just trying to get a rise out of him, but all he registered was Bucky completely unconcerned about his imminent departure. The most washing the coffee pot got was from the water left in the sink when Steve threw it down. 

“Damn it, Buck! That all you ever think about?”

Buck said nothing back to Steve’s sudden fury, just hid the flash of hurt that crossed his face and started making for the door. “I’d better get going.”

“Jesus, Buck, just wait!” The panic that jolted Steve into grabbing Bucky’s arm didn’t extend to his mouth, and he stood like he’d been struck dumb for a good minute just looking at the hope etched into his friend’s face. “Don’t...I’m sorry. You do look… good. You look…” like a damn hero. Like everything Steve ever wanted, everything he ever wanted for anybody but Buck. Like a door slamming in his face, like a fresh target. “...good.”

The hope didn’t exactly crumble from Buck’s face, but it did soften into something more like wistfulness. “Come with me? Make sure this hat don’t slip on me?”

Steve snorted at that, and looked down at those army issue boots, all spick and span, betraying none of the mud and the muck and the hell they promised, before he had to answer Bucky’s question. “I can’t come with you, Buck.”

If Buck saw what Steve was thinking, he didn’t let on. “Can’t or won’t, Steve?”

“Does it matter?”

“Guess not.” Buck looked down at his watch longer than he needed to and sighed. “I gotta go, though. Can’t miss this train.” 

Steve scanned the room for any excuse to spend another minute watching Buck move around their apartment before he was gone. “You haven’t finished your coffee.”

“You can have it. Probably do you more good than it’ll do me. Like my coat, which you’d better hold on to, by the way.”

“Yeah, well. It does look nice hanging on that coat rack. Really brings the room together. Guess I’ll keep it around.”

Steve’s attempt at a joke fell flat when Buck just shook his head and turned to face the door. “God. Don’t know why I try.” They both stood for a moment, Bucky staring at the door and Steve staring at Bucky’s back, no doubt both wishing they were staring each other in the face one more time. “You’d better write me at least. Don’t just forget about me, soon as I’m gone.”

Steve almost laughed, but it curled up and died somewhere in the back of his throat. “Couldn’t if I tried, jerk.” When Buck didn’t make to fill the silence, Steve added, “I’ll write. Promise.”

Buck gave a little nod with his back still to Steve and turned the door handle, pausing before he went to open it. “Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone.”

“How can I? You’re taking all the stupid with you.”

Buck opened the door and stepped out, only pausing to look back at Steve for a moment. Steve was stuck in place, feeling like Bucky was trying to tell him something important with the way he looked at Steve, like he was drinking him in one last time. Steve was halfway to stepping out the door with him, following him to the train station, hesitation be damned, but before he could blink the door shut with a click, and he was alone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was brought to you by angst. Angst, for when your own life is too much, so why not watch someone else's fall apart?  
> -C.B.


	2. Raw

It was cold, obviously. Brooklyn, New York in the slim transition between winter and spring, when the frost is just beginning to lose ground against the thawing onslaught of the sun. Maybe it was the illusion of warm victory brought on by the sight of a bright and cloudless sky after nearly a week of greyer-than-usual prospects, maybe it was that Steve hadn’t actually marched past threshold of his room in just as much time, but when he happened to look through the window that morning and saw the blurred lines of dawn encroaching on the ranks of night he had formed the impression that the day would be a friend rather than an enemy. Friendly weather, he had thought, and the cold tendrils of winter were finally thinning, and so he left his coat—Bucky’s coat, actually, because Steve had refused to touch it no matter how often Buck reminded him that he would be furnished with a new one courtesy of Uncle Sam—and went to the only supermarket on the block armed with too-big pants and a pale cotton shirt. 

The cold was retreating, but only just. There was warmth in the light of the sun, the kind that isn’t actually particularly warm but is rather like the brief press of a hand, definitely present until you pass under a bridge or into the shadow of a building but imparting no lasting warmth, and Steve felt the chill of the day all the more for the teasing attentions of the sun. He could have gone back for Bucky’s coat, but the idea caused an unpleasant twist in his stomach, paired with the fleeting thought that that would be admitting defeat. A ridiculous notion, of course. There wasn’t anyone there to defeat him but himself, and no one to cajole him back to his room with the use of words like cold, asthma, punk, and rheumatic fever.

He thought it would be warmer, but it wasn’t, of course. He should have gone back for the jacket, but he couldn’t. He ended up standing in the aisle of the supermarket farthest from the door and surreptitiously rubbing his hands together, huffing on them with already weakening breath in a feeble attempt to regain some warmth in his fingers. And that was fine—he was chilled, but he was shopping, and he wouldn’t have to struggle to find enough sugar to quell Bucky’s sweet tooth or risk watching him put butter in his coffee in the mornings to ‘take the edge off,’ and that was fine too. Steve started in on his list instead, which basically consisted of however much of whatever his ration stamps could get him. 

Steve didn’t have to look for sugar, but coffee was still a must. All the time spent within the confines of his apartment had resulted in a dangerously low supply of coffee, mostly because the drink warmed Steve through almost without fail. Coffee procured, he turned his attention to where the canned meat was—at least, where it should have been. Instead, his eyes were met with a stretch of empty shelf that extended down two wide levels to his feet and up at least one more. 

The only cans left in this section were situated on the top shelf well beyond Steve’s reach, unless he wanted to clamber ungracefully onto the empty shelves. He clenched his jaw and turned away, walking back through the empty aisle and telling himself that vegetables and broth were filling enough, and more than that they were warm or could be made to be so, and that was all he needed. Just the coffee, then. 

Steve made his way around the back of the store to the register, where an older woman was getting ready to pay, chatting politely with the woman behind the counter. Steve paused a respectful distance behind the older woman and studied the worn brown wooden flooring at his feet where it clashed with the mottled tan color of his shoes. The women seemed to know each other if the girlish, twittering laughter that would usually be considered unbecoming for their ages was anything to go by. Steve didn’t mind, and in fact their cheerfulness and the promise of a fresh supply of coffee warmed him in a way that hadn’t happened in nearly a week, and so when the older woman’s blue skirt swished and she told Steve that “I’m sorry young man, please go ahead and pay, I’m really just talking now,” he smiled.

“That’s no problem ma’am. I can pay, and you can keep talking.” Steve handed over the coffee to the younger woman behind the counter and attempted to flash both women the kind of smile that made women melt when it came from Bucky, but it felt far too large and toothy for his thin face. They both smiled back, so it must not have been too bad—maybe he was getting the hang of it after all. 

The younger woman’s smile turned apologetic when she glanced down at the coffee on the counter. “I’ll need your ration stamps for that.”

Steve nodded in acknowledgement and pulled his ration book out of his pocket, starting to flip through the tannish pages in search of the coffee stamps. While he searched, he heard the two women start up their conversation again.

“Now, when did you say he shipped out, dear?” The older woman questioned, unaware of the sudden tension in Steve’s shoulders.

The younger woman sighed heavily, and Steve started flipping faster past empty pages to get to his coffee stamps. “Last week. He’d been talking about it for months, and finally decided that it was his duty to enlist.” Meat, eggs, sugar, pages and pages that reminded Steve that he was getting rather low. “I just wish there was more I could do for him—I can’t even write him a letter yet.” The coffee stamps hadn’t been this far into the book last time. Steve flipped back to the beginning and started turning pages again, trying to keep the tremor in his hand from ripping any corners. “And I miss him so much, it’s just not the same without him there at home. Seems like I should be doing more—he’s going to be out there risking his life, and here I am just doing what I’ve always done.” Coffee, finally the coffee page.

“Well my dear, don’t you fret. You are right where you’re meant to be, doing the best for your country by keeping things running hereabouts.” There weren’t any stamps left on the front or the back of the page. That can’t be right—he had at least five left. “And he is doing just what he should be, too.” Bucky’s. This was Bucky’s book, not Steve’s, Steve’s was sitting on the table by the kitchen, and Bucky had taken the last of his stamps with him because they didn’t know if he’d need them on the way. “It’s a beautiful thing, a young man sacrificing the warmth of his home and family and fighting for his country, and all the praise in the world wouldn’t be enough.” 

Steve abruptly turned away from the counter and marched tersely out of the store, the useless ration book crumpled in his hand, ignoring the confused calls of the woman behind the counter. It was still cold, but there wouldn’t be any warmth until he could get back into their rooms. His path over pavement and up the narrow steps of their building was fraught with the unfortunate implications of the women's conversation. Steve couldn’t be drafted, couldn’t enlist—and God knows he tried—couldn’t seem to do anything in the way of fighting for hearth and country. Steve wanted to and couldn’t, and Bucky hadn’t wanted to but had to anyways, and how was that fair? 

A familiar tingle began working its way through his body, starting at the already almost unbearable tightness in his chest and shooting its tendrils out through the rest of his body, like shrapnel and salt scraping just under his skin. He knew the feeling, and Bucky for sure knew how it ended. Steve wanted a fight. Walking through the streets of New York and praying to see somebody, or a couple somebodies, doing something objectionable was almost pointless. You didn’t need to pray for it, you just had to look to the left or to the right and someone would be there, and if you looked a little closer there would be Steve, waving his fists and biting off more than he could chew, all blustering bravado and high-minded ideas. Then if you blinked there would be Bucky, pulling Steve away from the scene of the crime and calling him  _ punk _ in that way that actually meant ‘you’re unbelievably ridiculous’ and something else just underneath that Steve could never actually put his finger on but always assumed was close enough to ‘don’t worry me like that.’

Even though it was useless, Steve was praying, but today nobody jumped out of the woodwork to get in his way. All too soon he found himself staring down at the discolored brass doorknob to his rooms, hesitating to open the door. It was like limbo, staring at the door, in that Steve was perfectly aware of what  _ should _ be behind it but somehow felt that he couldn’t be absolutely positive of what  _ was _ behind it. For all he could tell, Bucky would be there sitting near the door, waiting for Steve to come in so that he could half-force him into a coat and press the right ration book into his hands, laughing and saying that they’d have to go to the store together because Steve insisted on being such a  _ punk. _

_ “Jerk.” _

To Steve the word seemed to echo so loudly in the cramped hallway that it took a few moments for him to register the click of shoes on the stairs. He turned the knob quickly, still too terribly on edge to handle a conversation, and stepped into the rooms, shutting the door behind him and staring out into the empty apartment. There couldn’t be any illusion anymore, because what he called ‘rooms’ in his head was really more a single room partitioned for different purposes, and unless Buck was hanging by his hair from the fire escape, then he wasn’t there. Steve turned away from the offending room and shoved the deadbolt into place, grinding the lock into gear below it. He did his best to avoid looking at the warm brown coat draped over the back of one of two chairs at the table, which was especially difficult as he was almost tripping over the table while he whipped open cabinets and slammed a pot on the stove in the kitchen. 

Chopping vegetables and watching them roll violently through simmering broth kept his attention for a while, but eventually he had to take the pot off of heat and put the thin stew into bowls. He finally turned to the table, a bowl in each hand, and froze again at the sight of the brown coat draped over the chair. It felt almost like a joke to stand by the table with the sum total of their “fine china,” left over from his mother’s attentive care, cradled in his hands. For once, and wouldn’t Bucky call it a miracle if he ever knew, the fight drained out of Steve without the need for a beating and left him feeling chilled and a little remorseful for leaving the coat that morning. He set the extra bowl down in front of the coat and turned away, praying that the warmth from his own bowl would be a match for the lonesome chill of the fire escape.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sponsored by coffee. Are you cold? Alone? Incomplete? Just drink coffee. Nobody can help you anyways, so why not?  
> -C.B.


	3. Quiet

Bucky didn’t think he’d had a second of quiet since he left New York.

It was ironic, really, that even out in the middle of nowhere, New Jersey, surrounded by the thick trees and barbed-wire fencing that portioned off the military training camp from the rest of the world, Bucky somehow felt more exposed than he ever had on the busy and wide-open New York streets. He’d scarcely had a moment to himself since he’d left his apartment for the train station – alone, for once, as Steve had staunchly refused to come with him. 

Bucky thought about it as he laid awake on his cot, staring up at the canvas ceiling of the temporary barracks in the early morning darkness. He’d just pulled himself out of a dream, some bizarre, half-waking nightmare in which he was at once paralyzed in his stiff army-issued cot and out training in the yard, struggling through the assembly of an unfamiliar rifle as his drill instructor barked out orders for him to go faster, telling him that more men died the longer it took for him to figure it out. Even in his dreams, he couldn’t escape the crushing pressure of all the people around him, the weight of all that they were asking him to do. 

It was a stark contrast to the way he’d felt when he left New York, so achingly lonely he could have died with it. Once he’d taken his seat on the train and looked out at the platform to see the other guys at the station with their sweethearts on their arms, kissing them and promising they’d be home before they knew it, Bucky’s thoughts had traitorously veered back to Steve. Half of him had wished that they could do the same, wished he could feel the press of Steve’s lips against his own as he pretended to be brave about leaving and pretended he’d be home soon. Another part of him had just missed the company, wished Steve were there so that they could share a smile or one of the old inside jokes that flowed between them as familiar and easy as breathing. Anything would have been better than the stony silence that had echoed in his head when the door of their rundown tenement apartment clicked shut, sealing him and Steve away on opposite sides. 

Bucky still missed Steve, still ached for him in ways he could hardly articulate even to himself. The quiet, though – Bucky was starting to think he really might enjoy some peace and quiet.

Now that he was awake, Bucky could hear the soft snoring of the guy in the bed next to him intermingled with the characteristic muttered sleep-talking of someone further down the row of cots. It was nothing compared to the noise he was sure he’d be hearing in just a few minutes, that of drill instructors sounding an alarm throughout the camp, rousing the men to prepare for their morning inspection. Bucky sighed, considering his pair of equally unpleasant options. He could either try to savor his last few minutes of inadequate sleep, or he could bite the bullet and accept that his day had already started. Wanting to avoid another unceremonious intrusion of the US military into his subconscious, Bucky went for option two, pushing himself out of his cot and moving as slowly as he could in the direction of the latrine. 

It wasn’t like they _weren’t_ allowed to get up to use the bathroom – or, at least, they hadn’t ever been explicitly forbidden from doing so – but with the strict military discipline that now governed Bucky’s daily life, some measure of caution not to be seen or heard still seemed appropriate. Collective punishment was a pretty common thing here, and Bucky certainly didn’t want to be the one to get everyone in trouble. He was still pretty shaken up from the last time one of the guys had gotten their whole unit punished – _“Quit crying, Johnson. You’re gonna stand there and watch, and the men who just died because you can’t listen to directions are going to run laps until someone passes out. Maybe next time you’ll pay better attention, huh?”_ The stunt was just another reminder that, for better or for worse, none of them were ever really alone out here. When they left for the war, there would be no room for individuals, no place for their own wants or needs. They’d have to give themselves over entirely, they kept being told, if they wanted a chance at turning into the heroes they were somehow supposed to become. 

Looking at his reflection in one of the gritty, rusted mirrors hanging over the unreliable bathroom sinks, Bucky was pretty sure he’d already given over his fair share of himself. The six exhausting weeks he’d been away from New York had changed him in ways he couldn’t help but notice, and most of those changes were clearly staring back at him from the mirror. His hair, for instance, had been buzzed the day he’d arrived. It had since grown out into something rough and short, still a far cry from the thick, wavy bangs he used to slick back with pomade for nights out in the city. His chin was sharper now, and the lean muscles he’d already been honing while working at the docks were becoming more pronounced. He was starting to look like a whole different person, and he had the fleeting, terrifying thought that Steve might not even recognize him if he could somehow see him now. 

Trying to wipe that notion from his mind, Bucky ran his hands under the sputtering tap and splashed some water over his newly hollow cheeks, thankful that the stubble coming in there was at least familiar. No matter how many times the army made him shave, that, at least, would keep coming back. 

Bucky’s mind drifted inadvertently back to the early mornings he and Steve had spent together in their apartment in New York, Steve fussing with the coffee while Bucky scrambled to get ready for work. Steve had always griped at him for hogging the bathroom, admonishing him not to use up their meager supply of hot water for the day in one go.

_“What, you really gotta shave every day, Buck?”_

_“Jealous, Rogers? Ain’t my fault you can’t grow a beard…”_

_“Oh, screw you, Barnes.”_

But the fights were never really fights, always undercut by Steve pressing a mug of watery coffee into Bucky’s hand after he left the bathroom, by Bucky always making sure to shoot Steve a smile before running out the door. 

Bucky didn’t realize the memory had turned the corners of his mouth up into a wistful reflection of that past smile until he heard a scuffle behind him, followed shortly by a group of guys from the barracks barging into the latrine. The intrusion prompted him to school his face into a much more neutral expression. 

“You were up early, Barnes,” someone called to him from the toilets on the other side of the room. He must have missed the call to wake up, Bucky realized, and now he’d have to join the others in scrambling to prepare for the morning inspection. There was no time for reminiscence in the fast-paced environment of boot camp – and there certainly wasn’t space for Bucky’s particular sort of nostalgia in front of the other guys. Even though his relationship with Steve, for better or for worse, had never strayed outside the bounds of what would have been considered normal, he still didn’t want these guys he hardly knew to have access to those memories, Bucky’s fondest. Steve was something he wanted to keep for himself, something untouched by the vast changes and moving pieces of the world he’d been dragged into.

Bucky carefully arranged his face into what he hoped looked like a casual smirk, shoving down the memories of home. “Had to get in here before you guys made a mess of the bathroom, didn’t I?” 

The quip earned him a teasing clap on the shoulder, firmly grounding him in time and place. That was the extent of camaraderie here, nothing more than a quick pat on the back and the occasional false smile. 

“Well, too bad you missed it, man,” the guy washing up at the sink next to him joined in. “Heard the COs talking just now, saying they're having trouble gettin’ enough guys on the front. Sounds like we might be lucky enough to get outta here early.” 

Bucky’s heart dropped. “Wait, you mean, like… shipped out? Overseas?”

“Well they ain’t hardly gonna send us home, are they?”

“Right,” Bucky muttered with a halfhearted chuckle as laughter erupted around him. His head was spinning. It wasn’t like getting shipped out was a surprise; much as he’d tried to avoid thinking about it, he’d known it was an inevitability. Still, though, now that deployment was looming ever closer on the horizon, he couldn’t help but wish he had more time. He’d thought he’d at least have a moment to send a letter off to Steve once the intensity of basic training had let up, letting him know what was going on and telling him again not to worry. (He’d hoped, a little, to have one in return, something of Steve to take with him as he left familiarity for the front lines, but he was realizing now that that had only ever been wishful thinking.)

“Dunno about you, but I’m about ready for a little change of scenery,” the guy washing up on the other side of him – Bucky thought his last name might be Williams – said, offering a wry smile that Bucky did his best to return. “Europe can’t be half as bad as having to see the Colonel’s face first thing every morning.”

Bucky genuinely laughed at that. “Hey, credit where credit is due – that moustache is something to behold!”

He got a laugh in return, and Bucky felt himself relax a little. This shouldn’t be any different from his life in New York, joking with the guys from the docks after work, playing off his hard-won social grace as easy charm. The only thing that distinguished this from his life before was the constant underlying fear, the knowledge that he’d been thrown into all of this with no say in the matter and, with deployment now looking more and more like a tangible reality, no idea what he was really in for.

“What about your girl, though, Williams?” someone called from across the room. “Getting sent off to Europe can’t be good for the wedding plans.”

Bucky glanced sideways at Williams. He was furtively touching the bare skin of his left hand, tracing the pattern of an invisible ring. 

“She’ll be alright. Way things are going, we’ll all be back stateside by Christmas, right?”

“‘Course we will,” Bucky said hurriedly, without even really thinking about it. “We’re already winning, right? Won’t be long at all.”

Williams shot him a grateful smile, making it easier to ignore the thinly veiled skepticism of the other men. “You got a girl, Barnes?”

Bucky froze. He’d known it was only a matter of time before someone got around to asking, but that didn’t make the question any easier to deal with in the moment. He’d _been_ with girls, sure, taken them dancing, sometimes taken them home. None of them had ever been “his” girl, though. Try as he might, he’d never managed to make a real connection with any of them, and he knew exactly why – for the same reason that, when Williams asked him about “his” girl, Bucky’s mind ignored every bit of reason and rationality he’d ever tried to instill in it and made a beeline straight for Steve. 

After floundering for half a second, Bucky quickly reassumed the mask he’d been so carefully practicing since he found out he’d been drafted in the first place. 

“‘A’ girl? I’ve got plenty, you gotta be more specific. Which one’re you talking about?”

Even as most of the guys laughed it off, Bucky couldn’t shake the feeling that he wasn’t out of the woods yet. Williams was still giving him a curious sideways glance that made him feel far more exposed than he was comfortable with – like the guy could see straight through him, right into the empty space in Bucky’s chest that no amount of sweet-talking girls or dance hall dates ever seemed to fill.

As chatter resumed and everyone scrambled to prepare for whatever grueling tasks the day would have in store, Bucky stole one last glance at himself in the mirror, picking out the lingering familiarity of his eyes in an otherwise increasingly unfamiliar face. He spared one last thought for Steve, hopefully safe and unchanged back home. Still mad at him, probably. Bucky sighed, turning away from his distorted reflection entirely. 

It didn’t matter how much he wished things were different, how much he wished he and Steve had never been driven apart. Bucky was still heading straight into the unknown, and, despite the constant presence of his commanders and comrades-in-arms, he felt like he was doing it wholly alone. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -S


	4. Wretched

Despite the increased brightness of the days and the reappearance of his hot coffee, Steve was still finding himself belaboured by the biting city air. It had carved a space out in his lungs and settled there, bleeding through until it seemed his pale skin was nothing more than a deathly chill that clung to him like a shroud. His body, shuddering and bending shamefully under the dangerous assault, frustrated the efforts of his mind, and there had been days where Steve sensed he was close to freezing over completely. To freeze would be to die—he knew it, even though he stubbornly maintained that it was just a particularly harsh season.

It had actually been two harsh seasons. Last winter, which was by all measures more severe than this one, Steve had spent a whole month watching the world—or at least the block—through the window, never  _ allowed _ to move from the bed that was Bucky’s-turned-Steve’s. It had happened out of the blue, although that was only because Steve had refused to recognize the warning signs. He had just wanted socks. The scuffed wood flooring of their rooms was always a shock to his system, and that morning he’d awoken with holes in the heels of his socks where they’d already been darned ten times over. Bucky had left in the morning to take a girl to lunch and the dance hall, all month he had been running where Steve couldn’t follow, and so his socks were left defenseless. 

Steve had always been a little  _ punk,  _ so of course he decided to rifle through Bucky’s things for a warm and hopefully fully functional pair of socks. He had chalked up the rapid palpitations of his heart and ringing in his head to some bizarre manifestation of guilt for entering Bucky’s space—stupid really, because the personal boundaries between Bucky and Steve had never been rigid and had maybe just never been at all. Still, he made it to the drawer and was near fainting with the anticipation of warm toes, soft woolen quarry clutched in his hand, before he felt the distant pain of his head colliding with the unforgivingly frigid floor. 

When he woke it was to a throbbing skull and chest tight with the need to breathe and the impossibility of breathing enough, and to Bucky sitting slumped over himself in a rickety chair by his own bed, shivering while Steve tried to move under the heap of what looked like every blanket or warm item of clothing they owned. Steve woke up in that bed, after Bucky had presumably found him there on the floor and called a doctor who confirmed what they already knew, that Steve was only getting worse and it might not get better, and had decided all on his own that that was where Steve would stay, and protest as he might Steve couldn’t actually command his body well enough to make it leave the bed let alone Bucky’s room.

Bucky had insisted it was only because that bed was furthest away from the window and the door, tucked into a corner of their apartment with a fireplace standing guard in between, and Steve didn’t doubt that Bucky cared about those things, but he also knew that Bucky wasn’t leaving their rooms anymore except for work and that that meant it was worse than he wanted to believe. Steve had taken to watching Bucky that winter because he couldn’t watch much else and because he was scared. In the moments when Bucky thought Steve couldn’t see him, moments when he seemed to think Steve was asleep or focused on another sketch of the world beyond the window, or the moments when he paced the living room late at night, forgetting that the door to his-now-Steve’s room was open enough to see his face in the dappled firelight, in those moments his blustering jokes and relentless teasing gave way to a gravity too heavy for his frame. In those moments, Steve saw the anger that was otherwise bubbling just under the surface harden the lines of Bucky’s body into something tense and resentful, braced against a future that he couldn’t stop any better than Steve. 

And if Bucky ever kept a tense all-night vigil when Steve seemed particularly in danger, or if Steve ever clutched at Bucky’s hand a little too tightly when he was struggling to take his next breath, then that was fine. Bucky never brought it up, and Steve didn’t think about it, and when the earth began to thaw, the chill that wracked Steve’s sharp frame seemed to subside with it. Even so, Bucky wouldn’t let Steve leave the apartment until he agreed to “just wear the  _ damned _ coat Rogers, you wanna kill me?”

That had been last year, and Steve and Bucky both had somewhat forgotten about the potential dangers of winter when the bulk of the season passed without more than a cough and a runny nose. It seemed to Steve like Bucky must have been keeping back the worst of the season through some sheer power of will, either that or Steve had been too preoccupied with Bucky’s being drafted to allow his own body to fail, because with Buck being gone winter had reached out through the biting edge of its death rattle and caught hold of Steve, and it only seemed to be clutching tighter. Now, shivering once again on the cold wood floors of their rooms, staring out the window at the overcast day and remembering how freezing the store where he had managed to get work restocking shelves got, he bent just a little. Steve would wear the damn coat.

It had been a struggle to get anybody to hire him in this state, nothing more than a walking skeleton, his appearance distressingly at odds with the fiery spirit that thrashed within his frame—or would have, if it had not been so wholly devoted to keeping him moving. Strangely enough, his haggard appearance paired with some desperation that must have unwillingly bled into his voice had finally convinced a store owner to let him spend his evening hours restocking the shelves. The allowance had been made with a large and unwelcome dose of pity, which had Steve gnashing his teeth internally and wishing for Bucky, who for all he had seen of the absolute worst of Steve’s poor health had somehow never stooped low enough to pity him. It was lucky that Steve only had to start restocking late in the day, when hardly any customers were in the store, because having the young woman behind the register stare while he struggled to move boxes as if she were contemplating whether to laugh at his difficulty or offer to take them herself was almost enough to make him suck up his pride and ask for help. 

That night, wheezing and nearly bent double with the effort of shifting bags of flour from the pallet to the shelf, Steve had to wipe the sweat off his forehead with one oversized coat sleeve. When he did he caught a whiff of machine oil underlaid with maple syrup and just a little god awful bay rum aftershave, and it was just so much of Bucky that he had to lean on the shelf to steady himself against a sudden dizziness that for once had nothing to do with his lungs. It was over a month now since Steve had seen Bucky off, and he hadn’t heard anything from him since. That wasn’t exactly Bucky’s fault—it had been Steve who had raged in the weeks leading up to the date to report to training, raged about how it was unfair that Bucky didn’t have a choice, unfair that Steve couldn’t go with him, until he finally started raging about how by all rights it should be Steve leaving Bucky. It was hard to bring himself to write to Bucky, over there doing god knows what, when Steve knew that he couldn’t do a thing for him. What good could he do here for anybody, let alone Bucky, when he could barely stand to put bags on shelves for his own sake? What good were words on paper when he couldn’t be there?

That train of thought could have continued on for the rest of the night if Steve hadn’t been interrupted by a tap on the shoulder. “Excuse me, Mr. Rogers?”

Steve turned, and found himself faced with a vaguely familiar older man with sparse white hair and oval glasses perched on his nose. “Yes sir, what can I do for you?”

The man looked pleased at his affirmation, and subtly shifted so that he was blocking Steve’s view of the register and the curious young cashier. “I’m Dr. Abraham Erskine. I’ve been looking for you.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t think we’ve met.”

“No, but I’ve had reason to be doing work in the army recruiting office around the block, and they certainly know you there.” Steve could feel himself flush, remembering the countless times—before  _ and _ after Bucky was drafted—that he had gone to the recruiting office and tried to make them at least consider him for enlistment. “I have a rather unique proposition for you.”

It sounded crazy, and impossible, and Steve told him as much. He said he knew how it sounded, but he could prove it, could show Steve just how close they were to making it work before he committed to anything. If it was true, then Steve had to wonder why all this work, all the time and money and resources, were going towards making humans into weapons instead of advancing medicine, or even working out how to feed more people. Erskine just smiled at that, said war was a more immediate threat on the country. It made some sort of sense, but it didn’t sit quite right with Steve and it felt almost like an insult. When Steve still didn’t jump to say yes Erskine pressed a card into his hand and told him to, “Just call if you change your mind, Mr. Rogers. We’d be glad to have you.”

The last half of Steve’s shift felt more difficult than the first, though he hardly knew how that was possible. Still, he was somehow all the more aware of the shaking in his arms and the rattling of his breath as he nodded a goodbye at the owner and started walking home, pulling the damn coat as tightly around him as he could. All the way home Dr. Erskine’s proposition was running through Steve’s head. The man had used the right phrases—duty, honor, serving your country, protecting people—but Steve wasn’t dumb, as much as the number of times he’d gotten a broken nose would suggest that he had something of idiocy in him. Everything Erskine had said seemed designed to appeal to him, and he didn’t need Bucky by his side to tell him that that was suspicious in its own right. It sounded too good to be true. He decided to leave the card in the pocket of the coat and bring it out in the morning, wishing more than a little that he had Bucky’s scientific knowledge at his disposal to tell him whether he thought this idea was even a little bit feasible. Of course, if Bucky had been there, it was more likely that they’d be talking about whether or not it would be  _ safe _ , and Steve wasn’t even remotely under the impression that it was. 

He hadn’t even begun to sort out what he was going to do about Erskine’s plan when he found himself face to face with his apartment door, and the shivers wracking his frame from the walk in the chilled night air told him that he wouldn’t be taking the issue up again until he was somewhat warm. He opened the door, determined to go put on a pair of long wool socks and every shirt he owned, and was stalled by the sight of a piece of tan paper sitting just behind the mail slot. He picked it up and closed the door, reading over the paper—a telegram, he could tell now—as he moved towards his room. 

**STEVE ROGERS 569 LEAMAN PLACE =**

**SHIPPING SICILY STOP WRITE JAMES HUNDRED SEVENTH=**

**BUCKY=**

Steve read the telegram, and then read it again, and then he slapped it down on the kitchen table and wished that the fireplace was already set alight. His breathing was becoming more erratic by the second—he thought he had time, time to figure out what he could  _ do _ or time to get over himself and just write his best friend a single damn letter—and it took a herculean amount of strength to clamp down on the panic-like feeling that was trying to claw its way through his chest. Once his breathing was coming more smoothly and the world wasn’t swimming in taunting loops before his eyes, Steve reached over and pulled the phone off its hook by the fridge. The click of the line connecting sounded like a promise.

“Hi, I’m Steve Rogers. I’m calling for Dr. Erskine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hundreds of products make a man smell pretty. This one makes you smell like a man. Bay Rum, now made with real Jamaican rum, spices, and the blood of your enemies.   
> -C.B.


	5. Bright

Bucky was alone across the ocean and very nearly bored out of his mind. 

He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, really, just that the newsreels they played at home made war look _exciting,_ and _dangerous,_ and he’d thought he might have at least faced off against a couple of Nazis by now instead of just reprising the low-grade stress of boot camp on another continent. But here he was, halfway across the world and doing exactly… nothing.

“You ready, Barnes?”

Bucky looked up from the gun draped across his lap. He’d been sitting under the shade of a tree near the base where he was currently stationed while he waited for his training session to begin, studying the workings of the long-range rifle he’d been given once they’d landed in Sicily. He was honestly a little miffed about being interrupted; it was gorgeous outside, the weather balmy in early spring, just a hint of sea breeze in the air to remind him of the docks back home. He was perfectly content to keep sitting there with his uniform jacket off, letting the sun warm his bare arms while he familiarized himself with his new gun. In spite of himself, he almost liked spending time just looking over the weapon, identifying all the various parts and figuring out how they came together to work in tandem. Still, the guy interrupting him was Fred Williams, and Bucky owed it to him to be pleasant.

“God, yeah. I’m just glad they’ve finally got us doing something.”

Williams grinned at him, offering a hand to help Bucky up. 

The benefit of being sent off into the unknown, Bucky had realized, was that he and all the other men were on equal footing here. The uncertainty that governed all of their lives had forced them into a sort of camaraderie by necessity, and, in spite of the circumstances, it wasn’t half bad. Plenty of the guys—Dum Dum Dugan, Gabe Jones, Jim Morita, among others—had proved good company for the long days that dragged by without a hint of action, but Bucky found himself more often than not in the company of Fred Williams from basic in New Jersey. 

Bucky figured they got along so well because the two of them genuinely had a lot in common; they were both from New York, though Fred was from upstate while Bucky had spent his whole life in the city. They were both baseball fans, which Bucky was generously willing to consider a point in both their favor even though he was a die-hard Dodgers fan and Fred liked the Giants. And, maybe most importantly, they both had someone special waiting for them back home, someone outside the bounds of the little temporary base near Sicily’s western beaches to occupy their every waking thought.

“Heard some good news today,” Fred said, a little spring in his step as he walked alongside Bucky away from the tents comprising the temporary base and out toward the training fields beyond the camp. 

“Oh yeah?” Bucky’s voice wavered as he struggled to adjust to the unfamiliar weight of the rifle on his shoulder.

“Yep. Bet’cha can’t guess what it is.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. Only one thing got Fred this excited, and it certainly wasn’t mandatory weapons training. “We getting mail in today?”

“You know it,” Fred said dreamily, eyes getting that faraway look that Bucky knew well, the one that meant he was lost in thoughts of home. Bucky knew that, for Fred, home was with his fiancée. Over the course of the past few weeks Bucky had learned all about her. Her name was Rose, and if Fred could be believed, she had the prettiest eyes and the smartest mouth of any girl in New York. Fred had proposed to her just before leaving for basic, and Rose had promised to wait for him. 

She wrote him every day. Bucky tried not to get too jealous about it. 

“Guess you’ll have another bundle of letters waiting for you, huh?” Bucky asked, working to keep his tone pleasant rather than bitter. “Your girl really knows how to make a man feel special.”

“Oh, you don’t know the half of it,” Fred said, still lost in that dreamy nostalgia. Bucky snorted out a laugh. 

“What about you though, Barnes?”

“Huh?”

“You expecting any mail today?” Fred raised his eyebrows, eyes glittering as he looked to Bucky for an answer. Bucky tried for a casual shrug, but the teasing glint in Fred’s eyes told him he wasn’t getting off that easy.

“I don’t know, I mean, my sister might write me if she gets the chance…”

And that was true, he was sure Becca would get him a letter eventually. But it was clear that both he and Fred knew that Bucky’s sister wasn’t who they were really talking about.

“Oh, come on,” Fred teased. “I see how you get every time they start passing out mail, like you’re waiting on something special, then you get all sad when it doesn’t come. You ever gonna tell me who she is?”

Bucky laughed a little wildly, trying to hide the way his heart had started hammering in his chest. 

“I told you, it’s no one! I don’t have a girl, not like you do.”

Bucky didn’t have a girl, he had Steve. But as the days dragged by, as mail deliveries came and went without so much as an acknowledgement from Steve, Bucky was beginning to doubt even that. He’d sent off a telegram to Steve at the first opportunity, as soon as he knew he was being sent over to Sicily on the heels of the more experienced men who’d paved the way for the invasion. It was a half-terrified attempt at reaching out in case the worst happened, a half-desperate plea for Steve to keep his promise and not forget Bucky now that they were on opposite sides of the ocean. It had been entirely fruitless so far, as he hadn't received so much as a word in response.

“You know I don’t believe you for a second, right?” Fred’s voice cut into Bucky’s morose thoughts. They were nearly at the training field, a wide green clearing framed with trees that stretched out so far that Bucky could swear he could see the faint sparkle of the ocean on the other side. The stacked barrels that served as their targets were set up so far away that they looked like hardly more than pinpricks against the horizon. Bucky found himself getting excited for the challenge, but he couldn’t think about that yet — not with Williams on his case, threatening to uncover the not-secret that was Steve.

“Dunno what to tell you,” Bucky said as impassively as he could. “Can’t just tie myself down to one girl, wouldn’t be enough of me to go around!” He spoke the last words loudly, making sure they carried far enough for the other men milling around by the edge of the clearing to hear them. He was rewarded with some good-natured snickering, but Fred wasn’t among those laughing.

“I’m gonna figure you out one of these days, Barnes,” Fred said, seeing right past the shallow smirk Bucky had plastered onto his face. “Just you wait.”

* * *

As monotonous as most of the drills they ran through every day on the base were, Bucky found that he actually enjoyed target practice. He wasn’t sure why, exactly — the best he could come up with was that it was nice to be _good_ at something, nice to be able to show off a little and hear the mixed encouragement and awe from his fellow soldiers and his superiors alike when he pulled off a particularly tricky shot. Beyond that, though, there was an undeniable little thrill that came with making the shot itself. Lining up the target in his sights, taking a fortifying breath, pulling the trigger, watching the bullet fly to hit its mark — it was almost like a ritual, a display of power over which he had total control. Out here in a foreign country at the behest of someone else, living every day according to a set of rules he’d had no say in making, that small modicum of control was as necessary as it was exhilarating.

Most days, the ritual of target practice had Bucky fully immersed, his world narrowing until it was just him, his gun, and the barrels he had to knock down. Today, though, his mind kept straying back to his conversation with Williams. 

Mail was coming, he thought as he stepped up to take his turn. If previous deliveries were anything to go by, that would mean it would be a great day for Fred and his inevitable bundle of letters, and another day of forced smiles and poorly disguised disappointment for Bucky. It was getting unbearable, the uncertainty borne of Steve’s closed-off silence. Was Steve still upset with him? Was he just busy making ends meet without Bucky’s extra income and couldn’t find time to write? Was it something else entirely, something worse?

Bucky hissed out a quiet curse as he watched bullets fly from the end of his gun, missing the stacked barrels by a mile each time. He tried to take a deep breath, get his hands and eyes back in sync with each other, but it was proving difficult. His mind was overrun with images of Steve, playing through all the various explanations for his total lack of contact. 

What if last year’s pneumonia was back? What if he couldn’t find work and was going hungry? What if he didn’t make it through the winter? What if, what if, what if…?

What if he was doing so well for himself that he’d decided he really didn’t need Bucky after all?

Once his magazine emptied, Bucky lowered his gun, surveying the field before him. The amount of barrels left standing spoke to just how unimpressive his performance had just been, but, even as he turned to see disapproval and disappointment in the eyes of the other men, it was hard to care. 

Maybe Steve truly wanted nothing to do with him anymore, and maybe not. But he wasn’t going to rest until he at least found out. As he packed up his equipment and headed back to camp, he was already composing a letter in his head.

* * *

Bucky lay awake in his bunk that night, staring at a blank piece of paper in the flickering lamplight. He could hear paper rustling from somewhere down the line of cots, in all likelihood the sound of Fred tearing into his bundle of letters. Bucky’s prediction about the mail delivery had been correct; he’d been lucky enough to get a quick letter from his sister letting him know how things were at home, but still nothing at all from Steve. 

Steve was too stubborn for his own good. Bucky knew that, intimately, from all those winters of _“ no, Buck, I don’t want your jacket ,”_ and _“ yes, Buck, I am going to work in this weather .”_ Bucky had always loved him all the more for it, even if it caused him unreal amounts of anxiety trying to pull Steve out of trouble time and again — but if Steve’s stubbornness, on top of what Bucky now realized was his own, was working to drive them apart, Bucky would have to draw the line. He picked up his pencil ready to surrender.

_Dear Steve,_

_I miss you. Sorry to start straight off with that but it’s true and I needed to say it. I hate being here without you, not knowing how you are or what you’re doing. ~~God, I hope you’re okay.~~ I don’t think we’ve gone this long without talking to each other since we were maybe twelve, and I hate it. _

_I’m sorry if you’re upset. You have to know I never wanted this, me all the way across the ocean and you at home. You know I’d be back in New York in a heartbeat if I could be. Maybe that’s wrong of me, not wanting to fight, but I’d take a spring in that stuffy, smelly apartment with us stuck way too close together over one out here in the middle of nowhere alone, no question._

_Don’t worry about me, though. It’s not so bad here. The weather’s nice, and the other guys aren’t bad company. None of ‘em are half as good as you, though, not that it’s even fair to compare. Wish you could meet some of ‘em. Dugan’s the funniest, can turn anything into a joke, and this guy Williams is good to talk to. He’s got a girl in New York, you know? I like to hear him talk about home, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make me a little homesick, too._

_Speaking of New York, I hope it’s not too cold there. You’d better be using that coat I left you – God knows I don’t have any use for it anymore. Besides, I’m not there, so I’m sure ignoring my advice and catching a cold won’t be half as satisfying for you now. Punk._

_Seriously, though, take care of yourself. Can’t leave me all alone out here with no one to write to, can you? Try not to get your skinny ass into too much trouble without me. And write me, maybe? Pretty sure I already said it, but I do miss you. Hope to hear from you soon._

_Yours,_

_Bucky_

He read over the letter until someone blew the lamp out and he could no longer make out the words on the page through the darkness. It was fine, he thought — as good as it probably could be, given the circumstances. Still, there was so much it didn’t say. It wasn’t like there was anything more it _could_ say, as anything specific was bound to be redacted before the letter actually made its way stateside, and anything he really wanted to tell Steve faced more obstacles than just military secrecy. 

If the letter got Steve to talk to him, though, it was worth it. Even if Steve never really read between the lines, never saw what Bucky was actually trying to tell him. If Bucky could just get a letter back, that would be enough.

He fell asleep that night with the folded letter still clutched against his chest, aching with loneliness and the weight of all the things he couldn’t say.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -S


	6. Lucky

Steve knew winter had finally broken when he noticed a bright Goldfinch perched on the fire escape, apparently unbothered by the blinding beams of light that only early dawn can produce. When he tiptoed barefoot across the apartment and opened the window it flew away, twittering softly into the sweet morning air as if to say ‘There, now you know that spring has come, and now you don’t need me anymore.’ Steve was a little disappointed—he thought he might have liked to draw the harbinger of good news—but then again it had served its purpose.

Seeing a Goldfinch was supposed to be a sign of good luck, of wonderful things to come. Steve couldn’t help but chuckle to himself as he thought about the things to come, and about how such an immense significance was tied to such a little creature. Every path it crossed was a promise of prosperity and yet it flew smoothly and swiftly, unburdened, singing that silly song wherever it went. When they were younger, maybe as young as 11, Bucky had pulled Steve behind a bush in the park and shushed him with an urgency that seemed ridiculous once he simply pointed up to where a small ball of yellow sat preening itself on a tree branch. They knelt there for a few minutes before it finally sang, Bucky immediately dissolving into peals of laughter on the damp ground. When he was together enough to see Steve’s confused look, he sighed like a parent and explained that if Steve had paid attention he would’ve heard that the bird was saying  _ ‘po-ta-to-chip’ _ over and over. Steve’s delayed laughter felt good when Bucky joined in, more for the sake of laughing with Steve than for remembering the silly birdsong.

“Plus, the lady at the store said that they’re good luck to see.”

“Does it even count if you looked for it, Bucky?”

Steve could still remember the gap-toothed grin that split across Buck’s face, and the earnestness in his eyes when he decided that “I’ll make it count. Ain’t nothing bad happening to you and me, Stevie.”

Some luck, Bucky halfway across the world hopefully not getting shot at, but Steve had been trying not to think about that. Steve leaned over the railing and wondered how the Goldfinch could breathe so easily with so many broken promises on its back.

Breathing. That was a novelty that Steve didn’t think he’d ever get used to. He took a smooth breath, letting the slightly warmed air swirl through his lungs, and marvelled at the level exhale that came after. Did that physical freedom, that light airiness that he could almost feel clear through to the tips of his toes, come with the same burden of broken promises? It wouldn’t, if Steve could help it.

He turned and walked back into the apartment, deciding that he had dallied enough for the morning. Dr. Erskine was expecting him in a little over an hour for the final stage of the process, the one he said would be the most painful and the most essential in stabilizing the serum. Steve had wanted to complete the process altogether, take the three vials and sit through the Vita radiation without looking back, but Erskine had encouraged him to wait as long as was safe. Steve was glad that he had waited now, walking through his apartment in bare feet and noticing with a kind of muted interest just how  _ little _ he felt. The burning pain that the serum had fed through his veins had been uncomfortable, and for all that Erskine said the Vita radiation would be like nothing he had ever experienced, Steve knew that it wouldn’t compare to the weight all of his physical ailments had been placing on him for years. He hadn’t realized the sheer amount of chronic aches and pains that he walked with everyday until they were suddenly gone. It was strange, and wrong, and he already felt like a completely different person. The pain of the Vita radiation couldn’t be worse than what Steve had dealt with everyday, but if it was as dangerous as Erskine said, then Steve was glad that he had the chance to live even a day like this. 

By the time he had finished getting dressed and was headed for the door he was closer to late than early. After a moment of thought he decided to put on Bucky’s old coat—he felt like he needed it, those warm sleeves dripping down over his fingertips. Bucky would never have been happy about Steve rushing into this crazy process, but the coat couldn’t convey secrets across enemy lines, and Steve needed something to tie this new person he didn’t yet know into the world he knew he was going to outgrow in a few short hours. When he opened the door he found a thin brown envelope stuck halfway in the slot and drew it out, ready to fling it inside before moving forward with his plans. He would have if his eyes hadn’t been drawn immediately to the hurriedly scrawled  **James Buchanan Barnes** in the corner. 

The act of breathing suddenly became more familiar to Steve, in that his lungs refused to cooperate with his attempts to inhale smoothly and filled in short, jerky bursts. A glance at his watch revealed that he was almost certainly in late territory, and so he clutched the letter in his fist and began walking through the building with an intensity that not even a week ago would have resulted in a dizzy break at the bottom of the stairs. He was halfway to the facility before he broke, ripping open the envelope as he marched on and drawing out the thin slip of paper that seemed fragile enough to breathe into pieces. 

_ Dear Steve. _

It looked like an apology, and read like an olive branch. When Steve walked into the facility, he demanded a pen and paper before he would even go in to talk to Dr. Erskine.

  
  


_ James, _

_ As long as you don’t ever make me call you that again then I can’t be mad, Buck. I won’t lie and say I wasn’t, but I know you didn’t want this. I’d rather have you here in our apartment too—which by the way is less smelly but more stuffy with you gone, not that I’m saying that’s a cause and effect or anything—and that’s the only ‘I miss you’ you’re going to get this time you sap. _

_ I’m glad the weather’s nice over there, because it definitely hasn’t been a pretty spring so far in New York. You’ll be happy to hear that catching a cold was a whole lot less fun without you there to mother me. It was bad, Buck, but I'm feeling like a whole new person now. And before you go deserting so you can run back here and watch me breathe, I mean it. Oh, and I’ve been wearing the coat. Jerk. _

_ Dugan and Williams sound like good guys, maybe I’ll get to meet them someday. You said Williams is from New York, too, so when you both make it home safe we can have dinner or something. I’m getting pretty good at making a lot out of nothing, actually—soup wasn’t cutting it anymore and so I’ve been practicing. Another reason to come back home. _

_ You said not to worry about you, and not to get my skinny ass into trouble, but if not me then who’s gonna worry about you Buck? I know I can’t do much, but about all I can do is worry, so I’m gonna. I won’t leave you with no one to write, though, long as you promise to do the same.  _

_ Now, you said the weather’s nice, but Bucky, you’re in Sicily. If you’re going to wax so poetic about some place I can’t ever see, I need details. I’m itching to draw some brave soldiers camping in the Sicilian countryside, give me something! _

_ And okay, I miss you. _

_ Steve _

  
  


Steve didn’t even read the letter over before shoving it in the face of the harried secretary, afraid that if he thought too hard about it he would only light that olive branch on fire. There would be no broken promises from Steve, he was no Goldfinch.

When the secretary agreed to have it sent immediately, Steve let himself be guided into the lab. He let Dr. Erskine sit him down, walk him through the facts he already knew by heart, and then everything was a blur until he was blinking down at himself strapped inside a table or pod or whatever Erskine had called it and listening to someone beyond the thick metal doors count down from  _ five _ .

It’s supposed to hurt, he reminded himself. He wished he could un-remind himself, but he wasn’t exactly sure if there was any way to do that beyond a good knock to the head, and there was nothing he could do with his limbs strapped down, all  _ four _ .

But he’s hurt before, of course he has. His life has been one long physical hurt, not that he’s been very much aware of it for the last several years except for when it got particularly unbearable during the winter. Well, two horrible winters were enough. There wouldn’t be  _ three _ .

And all the hurt hasn’t been physical, either. He thought of his mother, with the kindest eyes and sweetest smile and constitution unfortunately similar to Steve’s. He thought of Bucky, half a world away and alone and at war and still fretting over Steve, and wished that he could go back home and eat dinner with him, just them  _ two _ .

He thought about how Bucky fretted over him without ever telling him he couldn’t do something, whether Steve thought he could or not. Bucky never doubted Steve, never even laughed when he had to stop on his way up the stairs to catch a breath. He just stopped right ahead of him and started talking like he had been the one to stop so he could say something he just realized, instead of making it Steve’s fault. Bucky never doubted Steve. He’s the only  _ one _ .

* * *

They told him later that they were worried when he said to keep going, and that they thought he wouldn’t survive full exposure, but that they only did it because he kept telling them they couldn’t stop. It certainly sounded like him. They also told him that he was a good man, and already a good soldier, for chasing down the man that killed Erskine and stole the last vial of serum. That sounded like him, too. They said that when the man tossed a boy in a river and left him, Steve only made sure that the boy was swimming before turning back to the chase. He wasn’t sure if that sounded like him or not. 

He was sure that when he reported the events and his newfound skills to the necessary people—“Welcome to the U.S. Armed Forces,” they said. “Soldier,” they called him—all he could see was a face foaming up at the mouth, wild eyes boring into his own. He was sure that when he went to put on Bucky’s coat his arm couldn’t even fit into the sleeve, and so he walked home with it laid over one wide shoulder, the worn leather brushing up against a bicep that took up more space than it knew how to manage.

He knew that when he crawled into a bed, Bucky’s bed dammit, it didn’t swallow him up like usual, and he didn’t know what to do about that. When he heard a soft  _ ‘po-ta-to-chip’ _ coming from the direction of the fire escape he couldn’t decide whether it was his enhanced imagination or his enhanced hearing, but the distressing dampness of his pillow was inarguably real.

Some luck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was brought to you by goldfinches. Goldfinches may be lucky, but only when they're properly fed! Feed all your finches on Capern's Perfectly Clean Finch Mixture. It still counts even if you bribe them to show up.
> 
> -C.B.


	7. Red

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags have been updated for this chapter - you can check the end notes for warnings as well if needed!

The days dragged on, blurring together with the constant grind of training, working, _waiting_. Every day that Bucky opened his eyes to the same drab ceiling of the same canvas tent had him feeling a little emptier, and every day that passed had him missing Steve a little more. Ration deliveries had slowed to a trickle, and Bucky could only hope that his letter had made it out to Steve, safe at home in the old New York apartment that Bucky missed so much.

That slowing of ration deliveries had brought with it something else — a nervous anticipation hovering in the air, a sense of disquiet that was hard to shake. Even before the orders came to move out, Bucky could tell they’d be leaving, and that it wouldn’t be to anywhere good.

“Where d’you think they’ve got us headed?” Gabe asked nobody in particular as the men worked to clear out of the temporary barracks, loading their meager belongings into the lumpy canvas backpacks they’d just been issued. He was having some difficulty fitting the pack of smokes he’d somehow gotten a hold of next to the haphazard selection of tools and first aid supplies the army required them to carry.

“Almost feel like it’s best not to know,” Fred replied. He’d already assembled most of his gear and was lingering over his few personal effects, holding a neatly tied bundle of letters in one hand and what looked like a pocket-sized photo in the other. “Just gotta follow orders and hope for the best, right?”

“Yeah, guess so,” Gabe conceded, swinging the pack he’d finally managed to close over his shoulder. “Just hope it’s somewhere warm. A guy could get used to the weather we’ve been having lately!”

Bucky glanced back over at Fred as they finished readying themselves to move out. He’d finally relented and tucked the letters into his pack, but he was still holding tight to the photo, lingering on it like he was reluctant to take his eyes off it. While Bucky couldn’t see the picture, he knew Fred well enough that he was able to guess with confidence what it was.

“It… it won’t be the end of the world, y’know,” Bucky offered as the space emptied out and he found himself alone with Fred and the rows of empty cots. The words came out a little forced, and Bucky quickly tried to rephrase. “I mean, it’s just a move. Dunno where they have us going, but wherever it is, we’ll still have to get mail there, right? So you’ll still… hear from her.”

Fred smiled softly. “Yeah. Thanks, Barnes.” He finally looked up from the photo in his hands, expression going mischievous. “And hey, that’s good for you, too. Still waiting on a letter from your mystery girl?”

Bucky tried to laugh it off, but it sounded hollow even to his own ears. “Aw c’mon, you ever gonna drop that?”

“Nope!” Fred said pleasantly, swinging his pack over his shoulder. “Told you I was gonna figure you out, and I’m nothing if not a man of my word.”

Bucky was saved from having to reply when a call sounded from outside, ordering the unit to line up. Bucky took the opportunity to change the subject, offering Fred, or maybe himself, some small measure of reassurance before they headed off into uncertainty.

“I bet it’ll be fast, too. We’ll be at the next base before we know it.”

Fred nodded, but Bucky could see the worry in his eyes, the same worry he was sure was reflected in his own. Before they left, he watched Fred carefully tuck the photo into the chest pocket of his uniform, settling it right above his heart.

* * *

Bucky was right about one thing — it was fast. He’d barely been able to comprehend it, how things went from fine to so very wrong, so quickly.

They were moving inland, toward the sun as it climbed into the early morning sky. It should have been beautiful, Bucky thought, but instead the light was blinding — between the sun streaming down from above and its bright reflection in the dew that covered the expansive green fields they hiked past, it was hard to see much of anything at all. The weather that had been pleasantly temperate through the late winter was heating up as spring moved towards summer, and Bucky spent most of the trek listening to Dugan and Morita bicker about the heat while trying to ignore the way sweat was running down his own brow and into his eyes. 

“Quit falling behind me, asshole, the sun’s getting in my eyes!”

“Oh I’m sorry, I didn’t realize Uncle Sam sent me out here just to shield you, personally, from the sun…”

Bucky opened his mouth to say something, whether to tell them to cut it out or join in on the argument, he wasn’t sure. All he knew was that, before he could speak, his thoughts were scattered, drowned out by a loud, rattling noise echoing from a growth of trees on the opposite side of the field.

“Is that…” 

Gunfire, sounding off somewhere far too close for comfort. Bucky didn’t have time to verbalize the rest of the thought before all hell broke loose.

The men broke for the edge of the clearing they’d been passing through, abandoning Jeeps and packs of supplies as they fled. Bucky followed suit, diving behind a low rock wall that had probably once separated one farmer’s fields from another’s but now served as the only cover Bucky could find from enemy fire. He readied his rifle without even really thinking about it, all the training he’d been put through taking over as he aimed across the clearing at the sparse growth of trees on the other side. In the harsh morning light, Bucky could only guess at whether his shots would hit their mark. 

The skirmish seemed to last forever, gunfire echoing back and forth as smoke rose heavy and thick in the air, further obscuring Bucky’s vision until all he could sense were chaos and his own raw fear. Adrenaline was roaring through him like wildfire, screaming at him simultaneously to tense up and freeze and to turn tail and run. He responded by gluing his finger to the trigger of his gun, firing wildly at the other side in some desperate attempt to ensure that he made it through this alive.

Even as time slowed down and stretched impossibly thin, Bucky knew only a few minutes could have passed since the first shots — once the sounds of the bombardment died down and the air began to clear, the blinding sun had barely shifted its position in the sky. Still, in just that small expanse of time, Bucky’s world seemed to have changed completely. Gone was the atmosphere of near-tranquility, the sunny day and soft grass smelling sweet and heralding the approach of summer. Everything now stank of dust and sweat, a heavy undertone of smoke still lingering low and heavy in the air. The field before them was littered with bright patches where the sun glinted off the dewy ground a little more intensely than it had before. Focusing on one of them, Bucky could make out a slick red tinge staining the green of the grass. He suddenly felt very cold. 

Someone was giving orders, but Bucky couldn’t begin to comprehend them over the ringing in his ears. It was only when someone clapped him on the shoulder that he realized he was still staring down the barrel of his rifle, frozen in position and ready to fire. He glanced sideways to see Gabe staring at him with worry. Gabe mouthed something—or maybe just said it, Bucky couldn't tell—that looked vaguely like _you okay?,_ and Bucky was just barely coherent enough to nod. 

He slowly began to take stock of what surrounded them on his side of the wall. Most of his unit was still huddled in defensive positions behind the makeshift barrier, which had been dented in a few places by enemy fire and was beginning to crumble. Every pair of eyes he met was wide and unmistakably terrified, an expression Bucky was sure was reflected back to them on his own face. His tight chest loosened a little as he took stock of Dugan and Morita, spooked but safe and leaning against the rock wall. Most of the familiar faces he’d come to know during his time at basic and overseas were discernible somewhere in the huddled group, the realization of which also helped abate some of the tension coiling tight in Bucky’s body. Even turned to look at his fellow soldiers, he couldn’t purge the sight of the field from his mind, the glaring red stains standing out from the grass with sickening clarity. He knew the stains were too close to the path their unit had been charting to have come from anyone but one of their own.

Suddenly Bucky’s stomach dropped.

“Where’s Fred?” He couldn’t hear the words come out of his own mouth, but he must have said them. Gabe and a few other men turned their gazes towards him, saying nothing, just looking at him with those same fearful eyes. “Did anyone — did anyone see him? Where’s —”

The reappearance of Gabe’s hand on his shoulder silenced him. Bucky gaped at him, open-mouthed, but suddenly couldn’t find a single word to say. Fred had to be here, somewhere among the soldiers sheltering nearby. He’d been right in front of Bucky before things started to go wrong. He couldn’t be… but the broken look in Gabe’s eyes seemed to confirm exactly what Bucky feared. Gabe nodded almost imperceptibly to a huddled group of soldiers kneeling over what must have been several men lying crumpled in the wet grass behind the low rock wall. Their packs were open, first aid supplies strewn about in panicked disarray. Somewhere in the chaos Bucky picked out a familiar head of light hair, standing out in stark contrast with the red now bleeding through it. Bucky jerked forward, but Gabe’s hand, still resting on his shoulder, held him back. 

“No!” Bucky kept trying to pull forward from his slumped position against the wall, shrugging Gabe’s hand off his shoulder. He didn’t get far before more hands started gripping his arms, holding him back from charging the field medics circling Fred’s limp body. Restrained, he could only watch as the flurry of activity around Fred grew more frantic, and then, all of a sudden, stopped. Bucky knew before the medics even turned around that he was gone.

Things happened fast after that. Something about hostiles and mobilization and calling for help and a thousand other things that seemed far less important than the bodies on both sides of the little wall lying far too still on the ground. As the men around him sprang back into action, Bucky rose to his knees, crawling on shaking legs to Fred’s side. Someone had taken his pack, Bucky realized, no doubt searching for the first aid supplies that had proved to be so wholly useless in actual practice. All those letters Fred had held onto so closely were gone, probably tossed out all over the field as someone tried to get at his pack’s more useful contents. Logically, Bucky understood, but he couldn’t suppress a little spark of defensiveness at the thought. If those had been his letters —

But they weren’t. They were from Fred’s girl, back in New York, probably still busy planning a wedding that wouldn’t ever happen. 

Even when the call came to move out, Bucky couldn’t quite bring himself to tear his eyes from his friend’s face, resting still and silent against the soft grass. This just wasn’t _fair_. Not to Fred. Not to his girl back home. 

His girl. Bucky remembered with a jolt the conversation they’d had that morning, the reverence in Fred’s eyes as he’d played with the little pocket-sized photo in his hands. Without even really thinking about it, Bucky reached out to pat the pockets of Fred’s uniform, searching out the paper he’d so carefully tucked there just a few hours prior. Fred’s pockets were empty, though, turned inside-out by well-intentioned hands searching for the first aid supplies that hadn’t been able to save him. Bucky frantically pawed through the detritus of Fred’s scattered pack on the ground, heart pounding insistently with the residue of panic until he found it — a thin square of paper, half buried under a layer of kicked-up dirt. He picked it up with shaking fingers, turning it over in his hands.

“Barnes!” 

Bucky jumped. Someone behind him was calling for him, probably trying to get him to move out with the remainder of the men, to take care of the actual duties he had instead of sitting frozen in mute horror at his friend’s side. Taking a deep breath, Bucky reached once more towards Fred’s lifeless body, holding the tiny photo with as much reverence as he could in his trembling hands until it was tucked back where it belonged. In the pocket just above Fred’s heart.

Sparing his friend one final glance, Bucky struggled to his feet, a cavernous emptiness blooming in his chest as he and the other men forced themselves onward.

* * *

Nobody talked much that night. They’d made it to a camp just before the sun went down, streaking the sky bright red as it sank beneath the distant hills. When they’d arrived at the base they’d had post waiting for them, but even that, usually the definitive marker of a good day, failed to lift anyone’s spirits much. Even Bucky’s own haul of mail—a nondescript tan envelope with familiar, neat handwriting gracing the front—didn’t spark the relief he’d thought it would. He was caught in the pull of his spiralling thoughts, the day’s events replaying over and over in awful detail behind his eyelids.

Bucky and a few others sat up late into the evening, not talking, just silently reading over their letters and surreptitiously working through the pack of smokes Gabe had managed to carry in from the last camp. Bucky’s mind was still stuck on Williams, on the photo Bucky had left tucked in his jacket pocket. Bucky had tried not to look at it, thinking it was hardly his place, but he’d still caught a glimpse of Fred’s girl before placing the photo back where it belonged. 

Rose was beautiful, with dark skin and soft features, a delicate frame that seemed at odds with the bright glint in her eyes. Something about her slight build and smart eyes was so familiar that it made Bucky ache all the more to think about her — and about Williams, how deeply, stupidly in love he’d obviously been. 

He glanced down at his own letter, sitting in his lap still unopened. It was from Steve, as he’d known before he’d even read the return address pencilled neatly in the corner. Even redacted to hell and back, Bucky knew the shapes of Steve’s steady penmanship as easily as he would have known his own. 

Just as he could see the writing in front of him, he could see Steve with perfect clarity in his mind, as clearly as though he had a photo of his own tucked away in one of his uniform pockets. He could see Steve’s skinny frame, his nose all crooked from one too many back-alley fights. His eyes, the way they very nearly sparkled when he got going talking about something he really cared about. His delicate hands, perpetually smudged with charcoal from one art project or another. What he hadn’t seen quite so clearly until now was himself — faceless, featureless above the collar of a uniform. Just another soldier, only here now, holding Steve’s letter in his still faintly trembling hands, by sheer luck. 

Anything could happen to him out here, and Steve would never hear from him again. It was something Bucky had known since he’d received the telegram informing him he’d been drafted and had looked up from reading it to see Steve’s face, just as stricken as his own. He just hadn’t fully realized what that meant until gunfire had started ringing across the field that morning and he’d found himself on the receiving end of it. The worst part of it all was, Steve wasn’t his girl. Bucky couldn’t keep a photo of him in his uniform and play shy when the other guys teased him about it. He couldn't hold onto the idea of some post-war wedding to look forward to when this was all over. And he couldn’t even list Steve as his next of kin, couldn’t guarantee him something to live on or even get someone to inform him if something happened. 

All he had were letters, desperate attempts to communicate how much Steve really meant to him without so many words. If something happened to him and he really never made it home, he’d at least want to have given Steve that. He drew in a shaky breath and began to open the envelope.

Halfway through reading Steve’s letter, Bucky’s face started to hurt. It took him a moment to realize why; it was because he was smiling. He tried to hide it, guilt bubbling up as he realized this was hardly the time or place, but he couldn’t help it. His chest was still tight and his shoulders still felt bent under the heavy weight of everything he’d already seen and everything he knew was yet to come, but half a letter from Steve and he was already _smiling_. Picking up a pencil and drafting a reply should have been the easiest thing in the world. 

_Dear Steve,_ he began.

_I know, I know, I’m a sap, but it’s so good to hear from you. I really needed to hear your voice - or, well, close enough. It’s crazy how quick things can change out here. It can get ugly fast, and there’s nothing you can even do but watch. Never thought I’d actually miss spending a summer at the docks, but at least there the most I’d ever have to wonder about was how big the next shipment would be, how sore I’d be the next day. Not…_

Bucky paused. As much as he wanted to share the details of what had happened that day with Steve, to share _everything_ about his life with him, he couldn’t bring himself to write the words. Steve’s cheerful suggestion that they’d have the guys over for dinner once all of this was over, once everything was back as it had been before, put a lump in his throat. He knew now that nothing would ever go back to the way it had been. But maybe it would be easier to keep pretending that it would. 

It was just a small omission, really. Nothing compared to the feelings Bucky had already been hiding.

_...well, it doesn’t matter. I know you wanted details, but there’s not a whole lot to tell. Turns out camping is actually pretty boring - who knew?_

_Speaking of, remember when we used to say we’d get out of the city one day, when you were feeling well enough and money wasn’t tight? Get a tent and go out west, maybe see the Grand Canyon while we were at it? Maybe we take a rain check on those dinner plans and go do that instead, once I’m back. It’d be nice to spend some time outside without a gun strapped to my back. Just a thought._

_Glad to hear you’re getting some use out of my coat, by the way. Can’t have you catching a cold and getting in the way of that Grand Canyon trip. (Seriously, though. Be careful. Winters are always the worst, but you know how bad your asthma gets in the spring.) Take care of yourself, especially now that I’m not there to do it for you. Or, as you’d say, “smother me ‘til I can’t breathe, and not because of the asthma, dammit.” Same thing I guess, but you gotta admit my way has more of a ring to it ._

_I know you’re gonna worry about me too, but I wish you wouldn’t. I’m okay, really. That don’t mean you can’t write me all the time, though. Hearing from you was the best thing that’s happened in a while. Beats camping, that’s for sure. I want to hear all about what’s going on in New York, okay? Spare no details - I gotta get caught up on everything I’m missing. Really hope to hear from you soon._

_Yours,_

_Bucky_

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -S
> 
> Chapter contains blood, violence, and minor character death - no major character death in this story though!


	8. Patriotic

It was difficult to imagine yourself fitting into the world when your body wasn’t your own. It was Bucky’s jacket, draped bulky and warm over the back of his chair instead of dripping down to his knees. It was the look on the secretary’s face, so different from the annoyance when he had run in only to wave a letter in her face and politely demand that she post it that very instant. Now, even though he had run in and politely demanded to see Phillips and Brandt, she wasn’t annoyed. Steve couldn’t place the look at first, but it was much softer and sweeter than any he was used to getting—nobody stared at Steve Rogers all soft around the eyes except for Bucky, and then only because he was a sap.

Bucky, he realized. That’s the other place he’d seen the look the woman was giving him, on the face of every twitterpated, giggling girl that Bucky had ever asked to dance. He’d seen that look secondhand from across the dance hall, and he’d come to resent it because it always meant that Buck was about to get up and take pity on some sighing dame, leaving Steve alone, watching the dancing couples progress around the floor like some ridiculous human carousel. They spun in time with each other, cogs in a social machine, Bucky Barnes among them, moving too swiftly for a righteous slip of a man like Steve Rogers to find his way into their circle. 

So no, Steve Rogers didn’t get that look, not from women or from men, and hadn’t ever gotten it from anyone but Buck. Bucky Barnes got that look, Bucky Barnes knew how to take that look and turn it into something. He knew what to do with it, all the right words to say and what look to give in return, but Steve Rogers didn’t know how to do a damn thing with it, so he settled for shifting uncomfortably in the chair that the body he was working with didn’t fit. It was the chair, narrow and rickety, that had his attention as he tried to convince himself that the press of his thighs against its sides was completely comfortable and that the way his hips were pinched into the seat was manageable for the next few minutes. And it would only be a few minutes, no matter who won out. The secretary had explained to him, eyes wide and blinking up a storm, that Phillips was currently in a meeting with Senator Brandt and a few others, presenting his plan for Steve and his new skillset, and that he wouldn’t be allowed in until a decision had been reached. 

He almost wished he could get into a fight with Phillips for suggesting what he did over the phone the previous day, that Steve should be studied in some facility in New Mexico far away from any warfront or any place he could actually be useful, because even if he couldn’t sit comfortably he was sure throwing a punch would be worlds more satisfying with his newfound size. Still, he knew that he would go where they told him, if only because he would be going one way or another. Phillips had implied as much. 

It was with some surprise and some difficulty that Steve stood when the lone Senator Brandt walked into the room, offering Steve a cup of coffee and an audience with himself somewhere blessedly removed from the mooning secretary. Steve, refusing to be distracted by a steaming mug, demanded that he be allowed to speak to Phillips, or to whatever board was letting him make decisions about where Steve would be. The silent laugh that briefly shook Brandt’s frame had Steve seething where he stood, and he might have found out just how satisfying throwing a punch could be had Brandt not recovered his seriousness and placed a steadying hand on Steve’s shoulder. “Son, do you wanna serve your country on the most important battlefield of the war?”

“Sir, that’s all I want.”

“Then, congratulations. You just got promoted.”

And so Steve left willingly, and so it was that when he saw a tan envelope lying in his apartment behind the mail slot he felt a grin splitting across his face. The smile only grew wider as he read. Despite the niggling feeling of dread at Bucky’s references to how _ ugly  _ things can get and the  _ gun _ on his back, Buck’s talk about the Grand Canyon and his concern—familiar as the well-worn coat that Steve was looking forward to returning with what Buck called his ‘trouble grin’ and a cheeky ‘sorry Buck, but I think you need this more than I do now’—had Steve almost shaking with anticipation. 

He determined to write Buck as soon as he received more information from Brandt, who had said he would meet Steve at home to discuss his plans. Apparently he had wanted to prevent Phillips and Steve from crossing paths, if only because Phillips was frustrated at having his plans for research thwarted. Steve walked the letter over to the table near the fire escape where he had been keeping his sketchbook, now that he was able to sit outside to draw without fearing that he might not make it back in, and tucked it in between a half-finished drawing of a Goldfinch in flight and a charcoal drawing looking into the apartment from Bucky’s room. 

When Brandt finally showed, it was with an unassuming box under his left arm and a thick stack of what appeared to be papers and posters alike under his right. Steve showed him in and offered up a spot at the kitchen table, the rarely used third seat for when Bucky’s sister used to come around. 

“Thanks for hearing me out on this, Rogers. It’s an interesting position, unorthodox, but important.” Steve smiled and nodded for Brandt to continue. The Senator merely opened the box he had brought with him and drew out a length of blue material. No, Steve realized, it was red, white, and blue, and when the Senator stretched it to drape over both of his arms, Steve realized that it was some sort of suit. “Well, what do you think?”

Steve tried to quell the apprehension that had suddenly risen in his chest, and focused instead on the confusion that was its partner. “It looks very,” tight, shiny, ridiculous, “patriotic.”

The smile on Brandt’s face suggested that that was a very good answer. “Then it’s perfect. That’s what we want citizens to see when they look at you. When they look at you, we want them to see their country and to love it.” 

“What do you mean when they look at me?”

The smile fell just a fraction. “Well, I suppose it’s not quite  _ you _ they’d be looking at. It’s this.” Brandt reached into the stack of papers and slid out a large sheet of paper with a sketch of a man, wearing what looked like Brandt’s suit and a ridiculous mask to boot. The first thing that struck Steve was just how tight the suit really was—it certainly wasn’t hiding anything. “This is only the concept draft. We’ve had the plans for a while, but we needed someone who could look and act the part. After seeing you take down Krueger, I think you’re the man for the job, Rogers.”

“And what is the part, Senator?” Steve was reeling, but he could still notice how Brandt seemed to be edging around an explanation of what exactly it was that he was offering Steve. 

“The part is Captain America.” Brandt leaned back and stretched his arm over the next chair, Bucky’s chair. “You’d travel around, talk to people, garner support for the military.”

“Senator Brandt, you asked me if I wanted to serve on the  _ most important _ battlefield of the war.”

“Look Rogers, after that chase you put on, enlistment in the city went way up almost immediately. You inspired people, you brought out some love and willingness to serve that we just can’t. If that’s what you did with one chase through New York City, imagine what kind of a difference you could make if we took you to every major city in the country, put you in front of people for real.”

“What does that have to do with—”

“The home front. That’s the battlefield I mean. Nothing good is gonna happen in Europe unless we have enough support from home, enough young men enlisting without being drafted. We need to bring morale up, and that’s what I want you to do. Now you can reject me, take Phillips’ plan, and end up in some facility in the middle of New Mexico, but I think you’re more useful than that and I think you  _ want  _ to be more useful than that. Am I wrong?”

He wasn’t. Steve couldn’t deny that he wanted to be useful, he just couldn’t agree that this, this play-acting an American hero, was the most useful he could be. 

It was better than being a labrat. At least, that’s what he told himself when he was escorting a contented Senator Brandt out with the promise that he would report in the morning for more in-depth planning. He stood staring at the newly closed door for he didn’t know how long before he turned back to face the apartment, his eye catching on the single concept drawing that sat on the kitchen table, on Bucky’s chair that had been jostled out of position when Brandt leaned on it to rise, on the space that he had been so carefully preserving for months. He had let Senator Brandt come in and disturb their rooms, the carefully curated mausoleum of the time before Bucky had been drafted, because he had thought that soon he wouldn’t need to be tiptoeing around the absence. He had thought that soon he wouldn’t have to relocate to Bucky’s room in the middle of the night just to convince himself that Buck  _ wasn’t there  _ and  _ wasn’t going to be _ , no matter how much some part of Steve insisted that he try to stay awake in case he could hear the lock click in the early hours of the morning.

Steve thought that his Ma might have had something to say about his willingness to live with a ghost of his own making, especially when he had the option of sitting down to write a letter when the absence started to gnaw at him with a vengeance. If things had been different, Steve might have let his little time capsule fall into disarray, but as it was, he wasn’t a soldier. Not really. He wasn’t going to fight, let alone to fight with Bucky, and what he was going to be doing was only desirable in that it presumably didn’t involve being poked and prodded by scientists. What he was going to be doing didn’t sound useless, though it didn’t sound particularly useful either, but it was going to rip him away from their little apartment in the only home he had ever known without at least giving him the comfort of the person who had made it a home in the first place. 

And wasn’t that a whole other can of worms—what to tell Bucky. Steve didn’t have to see him to know that he was hurting, and that he was choosing to worry about Steve so he didn’t have to worry about other things. Steve looked down at his own hands, large and filled with an unfamiliar strength. Amazingly, despite all that had happened that day, he didn’t feel particularly vulnerable. He just wasn’t the type. Before, he didn’t have a choice about physical vulnerability, and he didn’t have a choice about Bucky’s reaction to Steve being so compromised all the time. Hell, thinking back it seemed like their whole relationship had revolved around Steve getting hurt, and Bucky not liking that he did. The pattern was worn like a groove into the floor, where they just orbited each other over and over and over, never touching, playing the same parts. And they loved it, or at least, Steve had. As much as he had always wished for more, had wanted the world to turn on its ear for him, some quiet part of himself knew that he wouldn’t exactly be unhappy if Bucky was the world that turned for him. It felt like betraying himself somehow, but if being  _ weak _ had brought Bucky to him then he couldn’t wish for it different then, but he had made it different now. 

Buck was orbiting alone now. Steve realized it at the same time as he started to cry, the first shameful tears splattering against the wooden planks of the floor. Steve had changed it irreparably, the little routine they had followed since day one, that had been familiar and pleasing and  _ safe _ and yet Steve had broken away from the only dance he had ever had a partner for and Bucky didn’t even know. 

Couldn’t know, Steve decided. It was too much to think about losing that concern, and that genuinely soft look, and there were already too many lies to untangle in the first place. The best he could do was to tell some of the truth. Bucky deserved that, even if Steve didn’t deserve the concern it’d cause. He walked over to where he had left the letter, and on a whim decided to bring both it and the sketch of the apartment with him to the kitchen table. With the faceless visage of a patriot staring up at him from the other end of the table, Steve wrote.

_ Buck,  _

_ You’re still a sap, but I think I understand it a little more now. Things really can change quick, and as much as I’ve always wished they would, it’s hard to tell if the whiplash is worth it. If you aren’t sick of the idea of hiking around by the time you come home, of course we’ll go to the Grand Canyon. You owe me a chance to draw a brave soldier camping out somewhere, and you can bet I’m gonna collect on that, jerk.  _

_ And I know you were born to worry your socks off about me, but the asthma actually hasn’t showed up. Maybe I finally kicked this thing somehow—who knows, maybe soon I’ll be good enough to enlist myself. Bet those guys at the recruiting office would be glad to have me on a whole other continent. _

_ You wanted details about me—I know you said New York but come on, you’ve been stuck on me AND to me since we were kids, no matter who says it’s the other way ‘round—and you’re gonna get them. I got a job, a new one, I mean. I mentioned enlistment, but I’m actually already working for the military, at least, technically. There’s this new project they’re running, some kind of touring show that’s supposed to promote war bonds and get more support for the military. They’ve asked me to be the artist for the show. Posters, flyers, ads, I’m going to be working on them all and they’re going to show my work all over. No one’ll care that it’s Steve Rogers that’s behind the new Captain America stuff (that’s the name they’re giving this guy), but that doesn’t change that it will be. _

_ It’s going to be a big change, but I’m going to get to travel around a little bit (it’s safe and they’ll treat me right, I promise, you know I wouldn’t let them do anything else) and I’ll have to wear a suit to work and everything. I’d ask if I could take your old one, but we know it wouldn’t fit me.  _

_ About the travelling, I don’t know yet where I’ll be and when. When you write me, just send it back to the address on this envelope—that’s the place this project is run from, and they’ll know how to get it to me. We’ll just have to write a little more, I guess, to make up for the extra time. _

_ Don’t stop being a sap, _

_ Steve _

Steve turned his attention to the sketch of the apartment, running his fingers over the painstaking lines of the wood, the excruciatingly detailed images down to the newspaper sticking out of two pairs of shoes that sat looking for all the world like they’d never sat anywhere else. He ran a finger over the single stripe of color—a scarf draped over the back of a sketched couch, the same one that right at that moment was hanging over the coat rack. It had the same deep burgundy as its knitted counterpart, softened from years of use, years of Bucky stopping Steve on his way out the door and winding it around his exposed throat with one of any thousand admonitions about his health. Years of Steve huffing, affecting a put-upon face and calling Buck a grandma for knitting the damn thing in the first place, and years of Bucky shooting back that  _ lots of the guys down at the docks know how to knit, Stevie, it ain’t just me. _ With only a moment of thought, Steve folded the paper down the middle and slid it into an envelope.

_ P.S. I sent you something else. It’s just a little thing I did, not really finished, but it makes me think of you when I see it. Since I’ve got the real thing here, I thought it might do you some good. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brought to you by Emeco Division chairs. Emeco Navy Chairs—one aluminum lightweight can take even Captain America in a fight.
> 
> -C.B.


	9. Dream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apologies for the late update!! finals are no fun but we should be back on track now :)

Bucky dreamed in shades of red.

_He’s out in the field marching shoulder to shoulder with his men just like that first time always like that and there’s red running through him like fear and he’s shaking and the sun is setting and there’s red pouring over him from the sky and he can see it on his hands the red sunset but it’s not the sunset it’s tacky and slick on his palms and there’s red running through him like terror and he can see it all around him the red flowers peeking through the trees but they’re not flowers they’re eyes all of them watching and he’s trying to warn his friends or maybe he just wants to scream but he’s drowning in red and he’s trying to fight back but it’s too late and he can feel it every time pulls the trigger his lungs getting tighter he’s going to drown he’s going to die and his friends they’re dying it’s his fault all his fault -_

Bucky jerked awake gasping for breath, fighting to drag air into lungs that still felt tight and sealed-off. All he could think about as he cycled through the panic, separating the reality of the rough canvas walls around him from the bloody fields emblazoned on the backs of his eyelids, was that at least this time he hadn’t woken himself up screaming. Instead there was someone else shouting in the distance, their voice cutting through the haze of red still skewing Bucky’s vision.

“Barnes, c’mon.” The gruff voice of a soldier, sounding from just outside the opening of Bucky’s tent. “Chow time.” 

That was familiar, at least. Finally the roar of blood in Bucky’s ears began to quiet. 

“Yeah, I’ll be there, one second,” Bucky called, doing his best to control the inevitable tremor in his voice. He knew he was hardly keeping any secrets; they all had nightmares, all kept waking up disoriented and convinced they were reliving the last awful thing they’d seen out in the field. But they also all had an unspoken agreement: they pretended nothing was wrong. They didn’t acknowledge each other’s nightmares, and they certainly didn’t acknowledge their own. 

Maybe it was better that way, Bucky reasoned as he sat and waited for his hands to stop shaking. It saved them all a bit of pride. And besides, it had to be easier to keep the dreams to himself than to try to verbalize them, to actually confront the rabid fear and awful _guilt_ hovering just under the surface. 

Sometimes, though, after the particularly bad nights, he thought it might be nice to talk about them. Just for the assurance that maybe he wasn’t the only one slowly but surely falling apart.

Once he was finally sure he’d be able to hold himself together, Bucky got up and wandered to the mess tent, taking pains to ground himself in reality. The familiar buzzing energy of the camp waking up for the day, the faint smell of oatmeal overpowered by the stink of men who’d gone a little too long without a wash, the heat of the summer sun as it broke over the horizon - they all felt real and solid, a far cry from the hazy half-developed world of his nightmares. Bucky felt a pat on his shoulder, too firm to have been anything but real, and turned to see Dugan grinning at him, his wide smile barely covering his poorly-disguised concern. Bucky felt grateful in spite of himself. 

“Mail delivery today,” Dugan said in lieu of a greeting. That news was one thing guaranteed to raise anyone’s spirits, and Bucky couldn’t help but perk up a little. Mail brought with it the promise of contact with the outside world - which, most importantly, meant contact with Steve. 

Sure enough, Bucky had a single tattered envelope waiting for him alongside his underwhelming breakfast of bland oatmeal and somehow blander coffee. He thought he ought to be used to it by now, but his heart still never failed to flutter every time he saw Steve’s crisp, neat handwriting gracing a page. As he sat down to eat, he tore open the wrinkled letter with hurried anticipation and began to read. 

All the talk of work and travel should have scared him, but as Bucky scanned the words he hardly had the presence of mind to notice what they said. He was too busy relishing the fact that he had something of _Steve,_ something real to hold onto against the uncertainty of everything else. He was about to reread the letter, really take in what Steve was saying, when he noticed the postscript scrawled at the bottom in uncharacteristically rushed handwriting. 

_P.S. I sent you something else. It’s just a little thing I did, not really finished, but it makes me think of you when I see it. Since I’ve got the real thing here, I thought it might do you some good._

Curious, the letter’s contents momentarily forgotten, Bucky slid his fingers back into the envelope, feeling out the folded edge of another piece of paper. As he pulled it out, his breath caught in his chest, and suddenly he was back where he’d started that morning, tight lungs fighting for air. 

Steve had perfectly rendered a sketch of their little apartment, everything laid out in achingly familiar detail. There was their tattered sofa with the radio beside it where they’d sit to listen to baseball games during the hot summer months. Behind it was the window to the fire escape where they spent rare evenings off work talking about nothing while they watched the sun set past the skyline in the distance. The charcoal lines all stood out against the smudge of a red scarf draped over the back of that black-and-white couch. Bucky felt his lips twitch up into a nostalgic smile as he remembered knitting that scarf, remembered Steve grumbling about it but still keeping it wrapped around his neck everywhere he went.

The whole sketch was beautiful and tinged with memory, but Bucky’s eyes were stuck on the tiny details of clutter Steve had added near the front door. There were two pairs of shoes lined up side by side, one large and one small, both with newspaper poking out of the toes. Above them hung two coats on a familiar, dented coat rack, Steve’s smaller, threadbare tan coat draped next to Bucky’s brown one with the patched elbows. Bucky had to quickly glance away from the paper when he felt tears starting to prickle at the corners of his eyes just from thinking about it - about walking back through that door, hanging his coat up beside Steve’s and vowing never to leave him again. 

But he couldn’t let himself think about that, not now. Not when he wasn’t so sure that the person who’d marched out of that apartment for basic training all those months ago was the same one that might one day come stumbling home from the war. 

Still, as he packed up his gear, Bucky made sure to keep the drawing close. It wasn’t quite a photo like so many of the other guys had, but to Bucky it was better. It was the world through Steve’s eyes, just as Bucky had always wanted to see it. With memory weighing heavily on him, Bucky slipped the drawing into his pocket just as he’d seen Fred do, settling it as near as he could to his heavy and aching heart.

* * *

Bucky still remembered the first time he’d met Steve. He’d been six years old to Steve’s five, and they’d both been sent to the same elementary school in Brooklyn. Bucky, much as he'd pretended otherwise, hadn’t minded school, but Steve seemed to hate it. He was always fidgeting, scribbling in the margins of his papers and kicking at neighboring desks with his small feet. He’d been smaller than the other kids, even back then, but he more than made up for it with his big mouth. 

Steve’s temper had been getting him into trouble since the beginning. Bucky remembered schoolyard fights as early as kindergarten, bigger boys picking on Steve for one reason or another and Steve never once just letting it slide.

Bucky hadn’t wanted to fight, back then. He’d hated even watching it, kids taunting Steve until Steve threw himself at them, tiny fists flying. Bucky could hardly stand seeing Steve getting picked on, could hardly stand the yelling and teasing and occasional scrapes and bruises that came along with it. In the end, it was half for Steve’s benefit and half for his own that he one day gave in and marched away from his baseball game at recess to break up what looked like yet another fight.

Bucky wound up facing down three bullies with no idea what to do, but Steve with his shining eyes had been staring at him like he didn’t quite know what to make of him, and Bucky knew he had to figure out something. If only to make sure Steve kept looking at him like he was maybe something special. 

“Leave him alone _,_ ” Bucky forced out, voice shaking. He felt his hands clench into fists. It felt wrong, unfamiliar.

“Or what?” A bigger kid sneered. The way they were surrounding Steve was making him look especially small and alone. Bucky hated it.

“Or I’ll… fight you,” Bucky’s fists were suddenly raised, almost involuntarily. He hated fighting, but not as much as he hated seeing Steve get hurt.

“You’re on.” The bigger kids raised their bigger fists. Bucky couldn’t remember exactly, but he was pretty sure he was the one that threw the first punch.

When Bucky finally pulled Steve out of the fight, Steve barely had a scratch on him. Bucky may have hated fighting, but he was good at it.

“I’m Steve,” the boy he’d saved had said later, holding out a hand to shake.

“James,” Bucky had replied, and pretended not to see his own bloody knuckles as he reached out to return the handshake.

* * *

It was only a matter of time before someone took note of Bucky’s gift for marksmanship. Back in training he’d practically been showing off, excelling at target practice with ease and gladly taking the praise that came with it. He was hardly surprised, then, when his standard-issue infantry rifle was swapped out for a more complicated model, boasting heavier machinery with a sniper’s scope. The upgrade had come with a promotion; he was now Sergeant Barnes, second in command and tasked with keeping the boys below him safe whenever he could. 

More often than not that safety came at the cost of Bucky being sent off alone with strict orders to pick off targets from a distance. 

And he was good at it. He wasn’t sure _why_ , exactly, just kept trying to reason that maybe he was especially coordinated or had especially sharp eyes or was especially adept at calculating wind speed and distance and the trajectories of the bullets leaving his gun - all of which made sense while they were still practicing on rusty barrels or targets painted on tree bark. 

But out in the field… it had to take a certain type of person to be good at what he did, didn’t it? To line up a shot with perfect aim and feel a second of complete and utter calm just before pulling the trigger?

With his new gun strapped to his back, weighing heavily on him as he trekked through the woods, Bucky thought back to schoolyard fights, to bloody noses and bruised fingers. It had all been for Steve, to protect him, keep him out of trouble. Bucky hadn’t ever liked it. He hadn’t actually wanted to fight. He still didn’t, and surely that had to count for something. (Right?)

* * *

Because Steve had always been sick as a kid, he hadn’t been able to do the kinds of things Bucky and the rest of the boys their age did, like play baseball in the summer or have snowball fights in the cold. He’d made up for it by drawing, spending long days in bed with a pencil in his hand and Bucky curled up beside him with a book. Steve was never satisfied with his art, always erasing stray marks with a furrowed brow, trying to get the shapes or the light or the shading down perfectly. Bucky never really understood that - he thought Steve was the best damn artist around - but he didn’t mind watching, loved watching that familiar look of focus spread across Steve’s face when he was drawing something he really cared about. 

Steve got a version of that look when he was drawing his mother, bringing out a quiet strength in her tired eyes. He even got it when he drew Bucky’s father once, reading a tenderness into the normally hard lines of his face. When Bucky most remembered that look, though, was one particular day in high school art class.

Bucky still remembered it perfectly, down to the sound of the radiator humming in the corner as pencils dashed across pieces of paper. They were drawing portraits that day - which, for most, meant learning the basic lines and shapes comprising a human face. Bucky was doing his best to sketch out the face of his sister, but he couldn’t quite seem to bring all the shapes together into one cohesive image. Steve, on the other hand, was working tirelessly, brow wrinkled in that familiar look of concentration that Bucky had come to associate with his best art. Bucky tried to hold back his curiosity, but as the minutes ticked by and that look of concentration only got more intense, he couldn’t help it. He quickly glanced away from his own lopsided drawing to Steve’s paper, just hoping to catch a glimpse of whatever it was - and his breath caught in his throat.

It was them. Steve had drawn the two of them side by side, the pencilled-in Steve looking over to the drawing of Bucky, who stared into the distance past the edge of the cream-colored page. Steve had left himself relatively rough, only filling in the basic lines and shapes of his face, but Bucky was rendered in excruciating detail. Bucky glanced quickly away, cheeks flooding with heat. He felt like he’d seen something private, though Steve, still staring at the drawing with complete focus, didn’t appear to notice or care. 

Bucky tried to return to his own drawing, but his hands were shaking so much he could hardly keep hold of his pencil. He didn’t know, really, what the big deal was - he’d seen plenty of Steve’s art, and Steve drew people all the time. This shouldn’t have been anything special. Still, something about the drawing - about being _seen_ like that, presented to the world exactly the way Steve saw him - left him feeling something he’d never felt before, something he didn’t think he could get rid of even if he tried. 

* * *

Bucky knew where his unit was headed now. He’d picked up enough scraps of information from his superiors to gather that they were making their way across the whole of Sicily to the beaches on the other side. And after that, across the sea, all the way to the beaches of Italy, provided they were lucky enough to survive the landing. It never stopped, the constant march forward, the constant promise of new threats lurking just beyond the horizon.

It was Bucky’s job to protect his men. He knew that, and he worked hard to keep his mind clear, save that thought, every time he set up his gun. He repeated it like a mantra as he climbed up to a lookout point above the island’s eastern beaches and set up his rifle under the shade of a well-placed tree. He repeated it as he knelt and peered through the scope, taking a moment to adjust to the jarring, bird’s-eye perspective.

It wasn’t long before he located his assigned targets. Their dark uniforms helped them blend almost seamlessly in with the lengthening evening shadows, but the camouflage wasn’t enough to protect them from Bucky’s sharp eyes. 

_It’s your job, just do your job_ , Bucky thought, lining them up in his sights. Even with the wide distance between them, Bucky was practically able to make out their faces in the dark. Or at least, he could have. If he’d been looking. But he knew better. 

He was just doing his job. Careful aim, a steady breath, a twitch of the trigger twice in quick succession, and it was over. 

At least, it should have been. But if Bucky kept playing the moment of impact over in his mind, watching blood spurt as men toppled to the ground on a sickening loop in his brain…

That was between him and his own spiralling thoughts. Nobody needed to see him like that, vulnerable and guilty and scared. He’d done his job, and that was all anyone needed to know.

* * *

That day after art class, Bucky and Steve had walked home side by side, just like they did every day. This time, though, Bucky kept losing track of the thread of their conversation. His eyes kept drifting to the portfolio tucked under Steve’s arm, the corner of his portrait assignment peeking out the edge. He was so distracted that he hardly noticed that Steve had stopped walking until he felt a tug on his sleeve, forcing him to pause and turn so that he and Steve were standing face to face. Steve was always bold, never shy about anything, so it scared Bucky a little to see him worrying at his lower lip with his teeth, not quite meeting Bucky’s eyes. 

Bucky waited, watching Steve’s eyes move from Bucky’s face to the folder under his arm and back again. Finally, he took a deep breath and spoke.

“D’you wanna see what I drew?”

Bucky smiled as casually as he could, trying not to betray the nervous excitement radiating through him. “‘Course, Stevie. You know I love the way you draw.”

Steve pulled out his portfolio, not quite meeting Bucky’s eyes as he did it. The portrait he’d drawn that day was at the top of the stack, and he handed it to Bucky with something almost like reverence.

“It’s us,” Steve said quietly, as though Bucky couldn’t see that, as though his heart wasn’t bursting out of his chest with a thousand explosive feelings he couldn’t even name. 

Steve had finished out the portrait, filling in his own face as well as Bucky’s. The Steve in the drawing was made of all hard lines and angry shadows. He looked sharp, and sick, maybe - all except his eyes. His eyes, almost soft in the harshly drawn face, were trained on… well, it was Bucky, but not in any way that Bucky had ever seen himself. He looked like a character out of one of those superhero comics Steve was always reading, tall and strong and brave. He was positioned near Steve, all soft where Steve was sharp, though the lines separating them bled together where their faces met on the paper, the styles mixing as their individual features melded in the middle. Looking at it, all those unfamiliar feelings swirling inside him were starting to fall into place. 

Steve saw him, and to Steve he was beautiful. Steve had held out that drawing, had let Bucky see himself exactly the way Steve saw him - saw _them_ . It felt brave, and vulnerable, and like every schoolyard fight and couch-cushion sleepover, every whispered conversation in the back of a classroom, every day they’d spent together simply because they couldn’t fathom spending it apart, suddenly made sense. That was the first time Bucky looked at Steve and thought _I love you_ without pretense.

* * *

Bucky read Steve’s letter over and over in the dim light of their camp’s fire as it burned low into the night. In the days since receiving that wrinkled envelope, Bucky had spent an almost inordinate amount of time staring at the drawing Steve had tucked inside, memorizing every line and shape, Steve’s distinct artistic style almost as familiar as the image itself. It was such a perfect testament to their life _before_ , immortalized in print exactly the way Bucky had been dreaming about it ever since he’d left.

What he hadn’t spent as much time with, though, was the letter. Steve’s talk of work and travel, the “big changes” they entailed, felt bitter and wrong. He wanted to keep ignoring them, to keep imagining Steve back at their apartment working to make ends meet the way they’d always done and just waiting for Bucky to come back - but now, faced with the prospect of writing out a response, Bucky had to confront the reality that the world was changing, and Steve was getting swept right along with it.

And working for the _military,_ no less. Thinking about it had Bucky’s mind circling back to wide-open fields stained with blood, to Fred’s crumpled body lying among the flowers, to Steve getting caught up in all the fighting and bleeding and death. He quickly tried to wipe the thought from his mind.

It was just a job, he reasoned. At least Steve hadn’t managed to actually enlist. He’d still be safe from the worst this war had to offer. It wasn’t the end of the world.

_Dear Stevie,_ he managed, finally.

_Glad to hear you’re doing okay. You know I can’t help but worry, but that’s just what we do. Don’t think I’ve stopped worrying about you since we were kids and I was saving your ass from those bullies on the playground. Remember that? You worried about me too, I think. Like that time I busted my hands up fighting, and you made me come home with you to put some ice and bandages on them before you let me go. Can hardly do that now, so I guess this is the best we’ve got, this worrying back and forth._

Unbidden, Bucky felt a lump rising in his throat, and he swallowed hard to keep tears from forming at the memory of Steve, all soft around the eyes as he wiped blood from the scrapes on Bucky’s hands.

In all the intervening years between their childhoods and now, Bucky had spent considerable time wondering whether he was someone Steve could love. He’d thought so, sometimes, in moments of lingering glances and offhand comments, moments full of that rare softness Steve reserved just for him. Even then, though, when the worst Bucky had done was give another kid a black eye, he’d had his doubts. Steve was one in a million, and Bucky had counted himself lucky to just exist somewhere in his orbit. 

What would Steve think of him now, when most of his dreams and all his waking hours were consumed by nothing but gunfire and smoke? Could Steve love him, now? Looking at his hands in the flickering firelight, picking out the scars and callouses from fights, both old and new, Bucky wasn’t sure. 

_The new job sounds amazing. I always knew you were gonna make it as an artist - never once thought you’d have the military to thank for it, but also never thought I’d get an all-expenses-paid trip to Italy and not enjoy a single second of it, so. Times change. They’d better be treating you right - if this drawing you sent me was anything to go by, they’ve got a real talent on their hands. Oughta be giving you the star treatment and all._

_Thank you, by the way. For the drawing. You were right - I really do miss New York, but when I think about going back “home,” Brooklyn’s hardly the first thing on my mind. No matter where I was, if I could just see our coats and shoes lined up like that, newspaper and patches and all, I’d be alright._

Bucky wanted to go further. He wanted to tell Steve _I miss you so much, I’d rather be anywhere else, as long as I was with you._ He wanted to say _I’m scared, nothing makes sense anymore and without you I can’t figure out where I fit into it all._ He maybe just wanted to say _I love you_ , but in the end he couldn’t seem to find the words. He hovered his pencil over the page for a long moment, debating, before signing off.

_Congrats again on the fancy job. Just don’t get so busy you forget to write?_

_Love,_

_Bucky_

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -S


	10. Home

Buffalo, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Chicago. Every city felt different. A different kind of energy running through the crowd, a different atmosphere to breathe in, a different set of people to learn. He had mentioned as much to Senator Brandt, but the man only clapped Steve on the back and laughed something about being green and wide-eyed. Still, standing in the wings and staring into the bright stage lights waiting for his cue, Steve couldn’t help taking a deep breath. Buffalo, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Chicago. Each one had been different, but each stage had made Steve feel excitable, on edge. Not this one. Steve let the air fill his lungs and felt strangely settled. This stage felt like home.

It was that sense of familiarity that had Steve marching onto the stage with a smile, where in every other city it had taken a few minutes to warm up to the performance and to his part in it. He felt his grin splitting his face when the audience started to applaud, a near deafening sound that had been almost totally absent in Buffalo but which had grown slowly just as the public had grown to love Captain America. Brandt was right, Steve mused as he paused at the end of the stage to salute the audience. He didn’t know what it was about him, but he awoke something in people. Maybe it was all the red white and blue, maybe it was the pageantry of the thing, but when people looked at the mask they were looking at their country, and they loved it. Finally, the girls parted and the lights followed Steve back to center, where he stood holding his shield confidently in front of him. “Not all of us can storm a beach, or drive a tank, but there’s still a way for all of us to fight!”

He didn’t have to consciously widen his stance, or convince his body to hold itself tall. He didn’t even have to focus on not moving his head while he tried to glance down at the back of his shield, because where in Buffalo there had been small slips of paper littered with halfhearted words pasted to the inside, in New York City there was nothing. “Series E defense bonds—each one you buy is a bullet in our best guys’ guns.”

It had taken a few months of resentful smiles and fumbling words and squinting into lights too bright to stand, but he finally felt like he had grown into this role, just as he had grown to fit into his body. It happened almost too gradually to notice, but one day Steve had woken up and hadn’t knocked his head trying to get out of a small hotel bed, and he had stared into the mirror as he got dressed and those filled out arms buttoning his shirt had felt like _his,_ and then he had stepped on stage in Philadelphia and felt for the first time since accepting Brandt’s proposal that he was doing something useful. The realization caught him by surprise, and an even more startling seed of guilt had sprung up like a weed alongside it. He felt Captain America’s smile begin to crack. Steve Rogers was doing a good job of filling out the Captain America mould, but there were still gaps, and so he turned his thoughts instead to the audience. This was his favorite part, anyways.

“That’s where you come in, every bond you buy will help protect someone you love.” Steve loved this; the moment when all of the children in the crowd started to scream and point, too excited and too riled up by Captain America’s words to stand idly by as not-Hitler crept up from behind. He just smiled and paused, letting them jump out of their seats right before he tuned and swung.

Maybe this was his favorite part, actually. The joyful cheers from the audience, the approving nod from Senator Brandt and whatever military pal he had convinced to attend that day, the curtain slowly swinging closed over the final triumphant tableau. There would be work to do afterwards, a stage to take down because Steve never could stand not helping, and a line of people waving the posters and flyers and comics that Steve had designed because he needed at least one thing he had told Bucky to really be true, people wanting him to hold their _children—_ and hadn’t that been the biggest surprise of this whole gig, people clamouring to get close enough to touch Steve Rogers because they thought something good would rub off on them. They thought Captain America—Steve—had enough of that to go around. There would be work to do when the curtains closed, but that moment at the end of the show when Steve stood victorious in the midst of a sea of red, white, and blue—that moment went on forever. 

He carried that moment with him all the way to the hotel, alongside the peace that had taken root in his chest the moment he set out for New York from Chicago. When he was alone in his room, and Brandt had wished him well and congratulated him on another job well done, and he had peeled himself out of the suit and was wearing the kind of button-up and pants that had always made him look more like a twig before but now drew almost uncomfortable attention from the men and women around him, he was once again impressed by the level of difference that he was quickly growing used to. 

Since he had been on tour, food had been more plentiful, if not better, which Steve was grateful for because he had quickly discovered that his usual meals of coffee, soup, and bread just wouldn’t be enough. He had learned to cook enough to sustain himself, and all of the ingredients were paid for, and he didn’t have to worry about being hungrier than he had been before. There had been warmth, too, without piling on old blankets and jackets and stealing socks or sleeping by the fireplace. And there had been space, enough that even with his novel mass he was never tripping over himself or something or someone else to get to the next part of the room, although that could’ve been partly because he’d never lived alone before. 

Having a couch to himself and enough hot water whenever he wanted was all well and good, but he had decided his first night alone in a hotel room in Buffalo that he would rather be in a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, taking bone-chilling showers and being told to shove over and make room on the couch, than be anywhere else by himself. He missed that apartment, missed the man who should be in it, and he absolutely didn’t want to go back. He had kept up with the rent, barely even blinking at the money disappearing monthly from his military paycheck, telling himself that he could still make use of it during breaks or when he was in New York. He had had someone’s secretary book him a hotel room for his first night back in New York City, just for one night, telling himself that he would be too exhausted to worry about airing out or dusting—not that dust was as formidable an adversary as it had been in the past—and that he would go the next day and attempt to settle back into the echoes of a life much smaller and simpler than that which he had grown into. Then, sitting on the couch of the hotel room that didn’t feel like home, staring at the place where Buck’s old coat hung still and quiet (some cities it was in the closet, by the bed, in New York City it must have been by the door), he knew with certainty that he wouldn’t see the inside of that apartment again. Not by himself.

Wasn’t that something to hold on to? Not alone, just that. Not by himself. He could see it in his head—somewhere across the city in an old beat-down neighborhood in Brooklyn, in a world where the war was done or had never started in the first place, a twig of a man had just thrown a punch and taken five and was now trying to slip through his apartment door and into his room without calling attention to the blood dripping from his nose through his fingers. Somewhere in Brooklyn, the waifish man groaned when his friend spoke and turned to see him leaning in faux disinterest against his own door frame. Now the friend, solid where the man was so scattered with fury and adrenaline and fear, was beckoning the bleeding man into his room, making him sit, trying and failing to be stern against the vivid red that by now is hitting the floorboards in soft splatters. They really did a number on him. He was bleeding _and_ burning, but the burning was stuck inside, tearing him up and making him vibrate with the fettered flames. Did everybody feel like this? Now the friend would be kneeling in front of him, would touch his cheek and tilt his head to examine the wounds with a disapproving gleam in his eye, and the burning would stop, and the man would never know why or how, but now he was only bleeding. Oh. That’s alright then.

Not by himself. Either they walked through that door together, or else that part of them—the man and his friend and the blood and the burning—stayed there forever, a menagerie in memoriam. He would call the someone’s secretary in the morning and ask to have these rooms for however long he would be in the city, and he would sit on the couch at night, after the lights and applause and after all the _looks_ , and think about how in an alternate reality, right that very minute, some man in Brooklyn was getting lovingly and frustratedly patched up by his friend. Why not? If Steve wasn’t there, it could be true. It might as well be.

So the hotel, despite its distinct lack of Bucky, was the better option by far. There was even a desk in the corner, he reasoned, which would be as good a place as any to respond to the latest letter. It had taken a while to get to him, found its way into his pocket a few days back in Chicago, and had stayed there. Perhaps it was a lack of time or will or perhaps it was something in the air, but either way Steve had felt utterly unable to peel the flap away from its sticky backing and see what kinds of words were awaiting him this time. The same forcedly light banter, or praise, or censure, sprinkled with the phrases that for reasons Steve couldn’t explain soothed the burning in his blood like nothing else but Buck ever had. When the envelope was in his pocket, or when he sat clutching it in his hand at a rickety desk in a lonely hotel room, it could be any of those. It could be any, but it couldn’t actually be real, not until he opened it, so he did. 

Steve could never wish he hadn’t read something that Bucky— _Bucky_ —had sent him, but he sure as hell could wish he had put it off for the next morning when he wasn’t so damn tired and already riddled with a guilt that each moment of reading, word by painful word, only expanded even more. The brief flare of indignation at Buck’s lack of sincere congratulations was doused when he read the final question, though it felt like a plea, asking him not to forget to write. The days he had spent keeping this fresh piece of Bucky crumpled against him in his breast pocket suddenly seemed so much more selfish than they had before, now that Steve realized he wasn’t the only one playing the waiting game. 

Never again, he decided as he pulled out his own paper and pencil, he wouldn’t hesitate ever again. And if it killed him to turn and face the changes he had wrought on their orbit, and Bucky still without an idea of the destruction, it would be a deserved penance. 

_James Buchanan Barnes,_

_With all those high marks you got in school and the science books you nicked from the library (Yeah I knew. You always hid things under your bed, it wasn’t that hard) I’d thought you were a pretty smart one, but here you are proving me wrong. Forget to write—as if I could even if I tried._

_I remember you helping me out that day when we were kids, and I remember you helping me out not even a year ago, and a million other times besides. Ain’t ever going to forget that, so I don’t know why I’d ever forget you either. And if I could come over there with some bandages and ice, I would do it in a second. Drop the job, drop everything, because you’ve gotta know that doesn’t really matter as much, Buck. I do worry about you, and I know you’re not alright. Don’t lie to me. It’ll be easier for you if you just come out with it, and you know it._

_I used to feel so bad about getting you into those fights, you know? I hated dragging you into something that you didn’t really want, and I swear I went into every single one intending to finish it myself. I never intended for you to have to save my ass, but I was always glad you did. That’s the only time you’ll ever hear me admit to getting my ass beat, so you’d better save this paper._

_I’m sorry for the heavy stuff, I guess this travelling has got me feeling sentimental. I haven’t been out with the tour for long, but I’ve already seen more of the world than I ever have before. Buffalo, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Chicago...And yet it hasn’t felt quite right till now, back in New York for a while. They’re definitely giving me the star treatment though, don’t you worry. I’m well fed, the pillows are soft, and I haven’t had a hint of asthma since winter ended months ago. People seem to like what I’m doing, too, which is nice. Amazing how many different ways you can spin red, white, and blue. Maybe I oughta send you one of my flyers? They’re supposed to be going around in Europe, comics too, but I don’t know when and I’d care more what you think about it than anyone else._

Steve hesitated, his large frame hunched slightly over the desk as he debated how much more to share. Should he talk about the people he’d met, how much he liked his job, how he missed Buck more with every drop of praise he got? And he wanted so desperately to ask him about the looks, about what they were and what to do with them, because over the last few months Steve had realized that he wasn’t the only one who burned. He could see it in the eyes of the women he greeted with as charming a smile as he could muster, a burning he had seen in every dame that had ever danced with Bucky but whose warmth had never before been directed at Steve. He had been shocked the first time he had seen that particular fire in a man’s eyes, a young doctor with whom he traded a handshake and a grin after his first show in Buffalo. He had almost convinced himself he had it mistaken, he had never been the object of any romantic intentions before after all, but he saw it in the faces of men at every show afterwards. Never all the men, only a handful, but it was enough to convince him that it was real. He didn’t know what to do with it, with them, and so he just kept shaking hands and grinning and telling himself it didn’t mean anything, and he didn’t want it to.

He wanted to ask Buck about all of the looks, from the men and the women, because the heat they imparted was uncomfortable and stifling. But he couldn’t ask about the men, not in a letter that’d be read and censored to hell, not when he didn’t even have the words to voice what he was seeing. He couldn’t even ask about the women, because then he’d have to explain why he had suddenly become someone people wanted to love, when it had only been Buck for all this time.

_If I write much more I’ll just end up getting more sentimental, and I don’t doubt you’d love reading it but I doubt I’d love remembering it. So instead, I’ll just tell you this. As much as I’m enjoying myself here, I’d rather be anywhere else with you. There. Now you’ve gone and rubbed all your sap off on me—I hope you’re happy._

The pencil hung over the paper like a sword, and Steve thought back to Buck’s letter. _Love,_ that’s how he ended it. Wasn’t anything wrong with that—sure there wasn’t—but Steve couldn’t bring himself to write the same. Love was meant to be honest, and clean, and Steve knew that he had been neither where Bucky was concerned. If this was what Steve’s love was, then Buck didn’t deserve that. He deserved the truth, he deserved better, but all Steve could give was a promise that he would try to give him both.

_More later,_

_Steve_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brought to you by The Sherry Netherland—for home life without the cares of home management. The Sherry Netherland, we were too expensive for you in the 30's, and you can bet we still are!
> 
> -C.B.


	11. The Edge

For all the chaos that had upended Bucky’s life over the past few months, there were still little elements of normalcy, strange in their contrast with the wild unfamiliarity of day-to-day life. Like now, in some boarded-up little town on the edge of the world, miles and miles from anything he’d ever known, Bucky found himself sitting in an honest-to-god bar, enjoying a drink. It was so normal it was almost laughable. 

Still, despite the carefree atmosphere around him, Bucky was having a hard time actually relaxing. He knew they were only here because they were gearing up to invade Italy, to move in across the water and fight tooth and nail to claim the beaches. Knowing what lay ahead had him feeling like he was constantly on the edge of a precipice, just waiting for the moment of inevitable freefall. 

So Bucky was already in a mood, and the poster facing him from behind the bar certainly wasn’t helping. He glowered at it over the rim of his glass as he drank, and the perfect face of Captain America glared right back at him, sharp-eyed and square-jawed. Insufferable. 

It wasn’t that Bucky wasn’t happy for Steve. He was, really. From the way it sounded, Steve had exactly the kind of job he’d always wanted; a creative outlet, a chance to travel, and enough money not to have to worry about his next meal. It was the kind of thing they’d always talked about in their half-whispered _somedays_ and _what-ifs_ that existed somewhere between casual escapism and real desires, almost plans. They’d pick up and leave the city, go out west. Steve would draw, and Bucky would find something to do, though that part wouldn’t matter too much - wherever Steve went, he’d follow, and that was that. But now Steve was out living the life they’d both half-dreamed of, and Bucky wasn’t even on the same continent. No matter how proud Bucky was of Steve, that still stung a little.

Bucky raised his glass again, looking at Captain America as though daring him to protest. The poster met him with that same accusatory glare, telling him in bold letters to _SUPPORT AMERICAN TROOP_ S and offering him nothing else helpful whatsoever. 

“Really preaching to the choir there,” Bucky couldn’t resist muttering into his drink. 

“You alright, sarge?” 

Bucky jumped as Dugan’s voice boomed to him from across the bar. The other men couldn’t have heard Bucky’s remark; they’d all just finished up a rousing rendition of some entirely incomprehensible drinking song over which Bucky didn’t even think he would have heard nearby artillery fire. Still, when you spent this much time living and fighting alongside the same people, you started to pick up on things about them that ordinary acquaintances wouldn’t. Bucky’s sour mood was apparently one of those things, a realization that only served to sour his mood further. 

Bucky tried a curt nod, hoping that would end the line of questioning, but no such luck. A few men, Dugan, Jones, and Morita among them, drifted away from the crowd gathered by the old, out-of-tune piano in the corner of the room, coming to sit beside Bucky at the slightly dingy bar. 

“Said I was alright,” Bucky grumbled halfheartedly. In spite of himself, he was grateful to have the company, at least as an alternative to his spiralling thoughts. 

“Never said you weren’t,” Dugan said lightly. “Maybe I just wanted a drink.”

“Right.”

As the other guys set about ordering drinks, Bucky went back to staring gloomily at the poster on the wall. It didn’t even look like Steve’s art - it was too flat, too one-dimensional, a mere copy of all the wartime propaganda he’d seen in the past few months. Something about it just rubbed Bucky the wrong way, though he couldn’t quite put his finger on what.

“That guy bothering you?” Morita asked, moving to sit at the stool next to Bucky.

“Huh?” Bucky blinked at Morita, who glanced meaningfully at the poster. Bucky realized he might not have been as subtle in his distaste as he’d thought. “Oh. Real funny.” 

“Just saying,” Morita laughed. “You’ve been staring at that poster all evening. What’d that guy ever do to you?”

Something uncomfortable twisted in Bucky’s gut. He knew it must be showing on his face, as Morita quickly recoiled, turning his attention back to his drink instead of Bucky and leaving him guilty on top of morose. Somewhere under all the bitterness, Bucky knew that he had no right to be taking this out on his… well, he supposed, his friends. Friends that couldn’t possibly know about Steve, or the tumult of emotions Bucky was feeling, seeing this piece of Steve casually on display somewhere so far from home. Friends that certainly couldn’t know about the envelope currently stuffed in Bucky’s pocket, addressed to him from Steve, waiting unopened. The fear running rampant through Bucky’s mind of the tangible realities of dying, of being forgotten - of _Steve_ forgetting him - shouldn’t have been anyone’s problem but his own. 

“‘Captain America,’ huh?” Jones piped up, unperturbed by Bucky’s stony silence. “That’s a new one. Didn’t realize captains got the stars and stripes as regulation attire. I oughta work on getting a promotion.”

“Well, he is the ‘Star-Spangled Man with a Plan,’” Morita joined in, reading the tagline from the bottom of the poster. “Guess he’s gotta have an outfit to match.” 

“What a load of bull,” Dugan grumbled. “I’d like to put a gun in that guy’s hand, show him what it’s like to storm a beach. Then maybe he’d think twice about tryin’ so hard to get recruits. Right, Barnes?”

Bucky made as noncommittal a sound as he could manage. He wasn’t any more of a fan of the ridiculous propaganda than the next guy, but just knowing it was somehow connected to Steve stopped him from fully joining in on the mockery. Dugan pushed on, undeterred. 

“I mean, we’ve hardly seen anything yet. Nothing like what we’ve got coming. You guys think the ‘star-spangled man’ has a plan for that too?”

The laughing, the joking, the thoughts of _Steve_ \- it was all too much for Bucky to take. Before he even realized what he was doing, he shot to his feet, chair scraping roughly against the scuffed wood floor as he stood. Sparing one last glance for the poster on the wall, he turned around and headed for the door. He could feel several pairs of eyes following him out, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that one of them belonged to Captain America, staring reprovingly at his back as he left.

* * *

There was something eerie about this little town in the early twilight, Bucky thought as he made his way through its narrow streets. He hadn’t seen many populated areas since he’d arrived overseas - it was mostly fields, farmland - but this village almost seemed emptier than all that open space. The darkened windows and boarded up doors that met him at every turn just served to remind him of what _should_ have been, of everything already lost.

Bucky slowly wound his way back to camp, where the looming shadows of green canvas tents and parked transport vehicles stood out starkly against the lingering evening light. Somehow, even the long, skeletal shadows of the camp felt more familiar and inviting than the ghostly town he’d just left. Bucky didn’t know exactly when normalcy and chaos had swapped places in his mind, but somewhere along the line he’d gotten more comfortable in the rigid structure of a military camp than in the casual pleasure of sitting in a bar with his friends. Maybe it was that constant, precarious fear, reigniting every time he tried to scan across the water for land on the other side only to be met with fog and the slowly churning waves. Or maybe he just belonged here, was just always meant to fight, whether he wanted to or not. Thinking about it came dangerously close to solidifying the sourness of his mood into actual nausea. He wanted to go home.

He brushed into his canvas-walled barracks and sat down heavily on his cot. _Home_ . That meant… New York, with Steve. But Steve wasn’t even in New York anymore. He was out seeing the world, and certainly not in the same hellish way that Bucky was. Not in a way that involved getting shot at in the process. And that was what Bucky had always _wanted_ for Steve, wasn’t it? So why was he so upset?

Bucky just sat for a moment, lost in the quiet of the empty barracks. Everyone else was out in the town enjoying themselves, knowing this might be the last chance they got - at least for a while, they told themselves - to loosen up and have a drink. Their absence left the whole camp unsettlingly empty, giving Bucky the first moment of actual quiet he’d experienced in months. For all the time he’d spent wishing for just a moment to himself, he hadn’t ever imagined just how afraid he’d feel to be really, truly alone. 

Well, he wasn’t alone, not really. He could feel the lump of Steve’s last letter, shoved roughly in his pocket as though reminding him of its presence. Bucky found it no surprise that Steve somehow found a way to be his best and most insistent form of companionship, even when there was an entire ocean between them. 

Fingers shaking, Bucky finally mustered the willpower to pull out the letter. It was a little bit crumpled, a little rough around the edges, but it was still so unmistakably Steve that Bucky felt his chest go tight just looking at the envelope. He really didn’t _want_ to open it, didn’t want to see for himself whether Steve really was better off without him. In the end, though, he had no choice - maybe Steve didn’t need Bucky anymore, but Bucky needed Steve more than he’d ever thought possible. 

Then he pulled out the letter and started to read, and it was _forget to write, couldn't if I tried_ and _I know you’re not alright_ and _more than anyone else_ and _anywhere, anywhere with you_ and by the time he got to the end Bucky could hardly see the page through his miserable, guilty, lovesick tears. 

It was as though the tight pressure building in his chest, not just over the course of the evening but over the course of the _years_ , ever since he’d looked at Steve and realized everything he wanted them to be, had suddenly released, letting out along with it all those built-up, unshed tears. With nobody in the barracks and hardly anyone in the camp, Bucky didn’t even bother to muffle them. He just let them fall.

He sat there for a long time, watching tears fall into his lap until he felt too wrung out and empty to even cry. When the raucous sounds of men returning to the camp started drifting in through the opening Bucky had left in the tent flap, he was still red-eyed and faintly trembling. He didn’t do anything, though, just sat and waited as Dugan, Morita, and Jones - his _friends_ \- made their way in and began rustling through their own belongings, preparing for the night. They all looked at Bucky carefully as they passed him, like he was one of the volatile bombs they’d been trained not to handle lest they trip some mechanism of the explosive by accident. Bucky hated it. 

“I -” Bucky started, his voice rough and gravelly from crying. He cleared his throat before trying again, feeling the concern in the glances of his friends as he spoke. “I’m sorry I’ve been acting - well, I haven’t been acting like myself lately. It’s not fair to you guys and I’m just - I’m sorry.”

The words barely even got a reaction, for which Bucky was immensely grateful. If nobody pointed out the weakness he’d let show, he could at least keep pretending to be strong. And maybe the rest of the guys could do the same.

Instead of asking him what was wrong, Dugan simply cleared his throat and went to change the subject, speaking as consolingly as he could without disrupting Bucky’s fragile composure.

“You know what the first thing I’m gonna do when I get home is?” he said. “I’m gonna take a hot shower, stay in it as long as I can. Won’t get out ‘til all the hot water’s used up.” He trailed off dreamily.

“There’s this diner, where I’m from,” Morita joined in. “First thing I’ll do is go in there and get a coffee, and just sit, and look out the window. Finally won’t have anywhere to be for a while.”

“Think I’m gonna go dancing,” Jones said. “Find a girl or three, take them out, show ‘em a good time. Won’t have to worry about gear or inspections or anything else. We’ll just… dance.” 

They were quiet for a moment, lost for the moment in contemplation of things they could only wish for. 

“We’re gonna make it,” Morita said quietly. Bucky didn’t even have to ask to know that their minds were all on Fred Williams, on the other guys that hadn’t been so lucky. “It’s gonna get bad for a while, but we’re gonna make it. We’ve got to.”

Bucky nodded blankly, more for the benefit of his friends than for himself. Even if he _did_ make it through the landing and whatever came next, he didn’t know what he’d do once he made it home. He didn’t even really know where “home” was anymore. Without Steve, New York was hardly as welcome a thought as it used to be. Nor was anywhere else. As the rest of the men resumed their preparations for the night, Bucky kept thinking about it, trying to dredge up a concrete place he wanted to return to, but couldn’t come up with even one. They all felt empty.

It wasn’t until later, when Bucky was rifling through his pack for a pencil and paper, that he stumbled once again across the little sketch Steve had sent to him, their old apartment laid out perfectly in charcoal. He’d somehow let it slip in unnoticed with the rest of his gear, but now he brought it out again with renewed reverence. Their familiar old furniture, their coats and shoes jumbled together at the door, all the components of their own small share of domesticity - that was home, as far as Bucky could conceive of it. Not the apartment, exactly, but him and Steve together, just the way they always had been. 

If he wanted that home back, Bucky knew he was going to have to fight for it. And that meant he couldn’t just keep pretending. He ran his eyes over Steve’s letter in his hand, desperately trying to think of a way to bridge the growing gap between them.

* * *

_Dear Steve,_ Bucky wrote that night, Steve’s drawing in full view on his cot next to him.

_I’m sorry it took so long for me to write back to you. You might’ve been right about me not being totally alright (and yeah, that’s the only time you’re gonna hear me admit you were right, so, like you said, you’d better save this paper). Sometimes it just feels like everything’s falling apart, and I can’t help but wonder what’s going to be left after it does. I want to think we’ll make it through, but sometimes I’m not so sure._

_Do you remember that guy Williams I told you about? How he was a good friend, made it easier to deal with everything when I first got shipped out? He didn’t make it. He had a girl, too, and they were gonna get married. It’s just not fair. When stuff like that keeps happening, it’s hard to think that anything is gonna turn out okay._

_We’re about to head into something bad, really bad, and I’m not gonna lie, Stevie, I’m scared. I know it’s wrong, but I don’t want to do this. I’m not ready. I just have to think - to hope - that we’re gonna make it out the other side._

_It’s always so good to hear from you. If you can find the time (I know, you said it’s no problem, but I still don’t want to keep you from your work) can we try to write more often? When it feels like nothing makes sense, which keeps happening more and more often, it always helps to read over your letters. Where are you going? What are you seeing? Are you taking care of yourself? I’d love to see one of your flyers, too. Sounds like they’re pretty different from your usual art, but, knowing you, you’ll be doing a great job on them all the same._

The simple act of writing seemed to lift a weight off Bucky’s shoulders, the last of the tension he had yet to cry out finally melting away. He’d have to put on a brave face when he met with the terrifying unknown, but he didn’t need to keep wearing that mask with Steve. Steve knew him better than anyone else - all Bucky had to do was be honest and let him.

_I’d better sign off now - just know that even when I’m not writing, I’m always thinking about you. I’ve got no clue what’s coming, but I gotta believe I’m gonna make it through. Or, we are. We have to, right?_

_Yours, always,_

_Bucky_

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -S


	12. Collected Correspondence - 1943

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What follows is the collected correspondence between Captain Steven Grant Rogers and Sergeant James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes. All letters in this collection are dated between August 6th and November 10th of the year 1943. While there is evidence that additional letters were written between the two men, these are all that remain. The letters of Captain Rogers have been generously donated by a Mr. Grant Keller. The letters of Sergeant Barnes were recovered from the fields near Azzano, Italy and donated by an anonymous individual.
> 
> This collection is on display at the Captain America exhibit of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, located in Washington, D.C.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We've reached the midpoint/intermission of our story! This week we have a short interlude of letters that span the time before the next series of chapters.

_August 6th, 1943_

_Bucky,_

_I’m sorry about Williams. He sounded like a good guy, and he didn’t deserve that. No one does. I could go into the whole spiel about God and Heaven and having a plan, but, you’ve never found as much to hold to in that as I have, so just, I’m sorry._

_I can’t tell you it’ll turn out okay, either, much as I wish I could. But Bucky, I’ve gotta believe you’re gonna make it out of this. Thinking about this going any other way...it just ain’t right. I can’t even wrap my head around it, not that I’ve tried too hard to. I know things are changing, falling apart, but you don’t have to wonder what’ll be left, okay? I’ll be here. Maybe not exactly where you left me, but I’ll be right beside you when we walk back into the old apartment (I kept it you know—you know I wouldn’t get rid of it), hang up our coats, and line our shoes up by the door._

_I know it’s not a lot, but you’ve got that left, and so help me James Buchanan Barnes you had better come take it. You told me till the end of the line, and I’m holding you to it. We can talk about the rest when we get there._

_Now, I’m only changing the topic because I know you need it, so don’t get too used to me letting you get away with so much, jerk. The job is great—I’m getting paid to do something I actually like that doesn’t make me feel about to keel over. I’ve gotten to see a couple different cities so far; Buffalo, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Chicago. I admit I haven’t seen many sights, not a ton of free time with the tour this popular, but the travelling, Buck! I look out the window and see rolling hills, wildflowers, and then all of a sudden there’s these wide, flat stretches of road that just go on for forever. It ain’t the Grand Canyon, but it’s gorgeous, and it’s more than I ever thought I’d see—for more reason than one._

_The people are nice, these government, military types are actually more intimidating now that I’m beholden to them for something, but they seem to really like what I do. It is different from my usual art, that’s for sure, but I just did what they asked and now I’m actually getting to like it. It helps that everyone else seems to like it, too. I did draw up a flyer my own way, though. You’ll have to tell me how you like it, whether it’s better than the ones I’m sure you’ve seen around by now._

_I’m taking good care of myself, promise. I drink my black coffee in a hotel room in the morning, take a warm shower, sometimes sit at the desk and read your letters or write one back. I go to work, think up some new material, attend the shows, and hang your coat up when I get back at night. Haven’t been sick since right after you left, been getting plenty to eat, even put on weight since this job started. It’s good for me Buck, I swear. Been getting to meet a lot of people, too, though I gotta say I think I prefer a lotta them from a distance. Wish you coulda seen—some lady who liked my art asked me to hold her kid and sign a flyer after one of the Captain America shows. I hardly knew how to hold the thing, nearly begged her to take it back. Don’t wanna do that again any time soon._

_You asked for longer letters, so don’t you go getting tired of reading on me now. I gave you details, now I need some. Silly as it sounds, after years of always knowing what you might be doing and where, it’s rough just thinking of you out there doing Lord knows what with God knows who. I don’t mean the heavy stuff, but you can tell me that, too. Just, tell me whether you got enough sugar for your coffee in the morning, and who you talk to when you have the time, and whether the food manages to be worse than anything we ever made together, and if you stare up at a tan canvas tent when you can’t sleep at night or something else._

_And Buck? I keep all your letters. Every single one._

_More later, I swear,_

_Steve_

* * *

_August 23, 1943_

_Dear Steve,_

_It’s real good to hear from you. I can’t say much about what we’re doing, but I can say we’re gearing up for something big. Still managed to get your letter, though, and with any luck mine will be able to make it out to you._

_I’m sorry for dumping all that heavy stuff on you in my last letter. It really did help to just talk to someone about it who’s not here stuck in it with me. Only getting to talk to you through letters makes it easy to only show you the good parts, pretend that everything is fine, but I think it really helps to talk about the things that aren’t so great too. Gives us all the time we need to find the right words to talk about the bigger things, right? Maybe I’m crazy. Haven’t been able to sleep as much, just knowing what we’re about to do - might be making me more sappy than usual._

_Speaking of the bigger things - your job must be going really well, if they’re taking you to all those places! Wish I could see them with you. Do you remember us always talking about doing that? Heading out west on the open road like cowboys on one of those radio shows we grew up listening to? Now you’re actually doing it— is it everything we always thought it was gonna be? I wanna hear all about it, wanna feel like I’m getting to do it too._

_(Also really wish I could’ve seen you interacting with people’s kids. Steven Grant Rogers, holding a human baby - that’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience if I’ve ever heard of one.)_

_You’ll be happy (maybe) to know I also got your Captain America flyer. It’s real good, better than all the posters I’ve seen so far. Even with the mask he’s got on, the way you draw the guy’s eyes, like he really believes in something - I can see why the campaign has gotten so popular. I gotta say, though, this “Captain America” is supposed to be a soldier, right? Don’t know that any of us out here have looked that patriotic (or even that awake) in a while. The colors on that outfit aren’t exactly easy on the eyes, either. Just saying! But if Captain America is keeping you healthy and getting you enough to eat I guess I can’t complain._

_I might be tired, but I’m never too tired to read anything you send me, just so you know. I keep that drawing you sent me, the one of our apartment, on me all the time. Thanks for letting me know you kept the place - even more reason to make it home. I can only wish the food here was as good as whatever we managed to scrape together back there, and, oh god, don’t even talk to me about sugared coffee! Miss that almost as much as I miss you, punk._

_And hey, now I’ve got Captain America to keep me company too, though I think I’m gonna stick to looking at the apartment drawing when I’m feeling down, no offense. And that’s only ‘til I see it again in person. Or, I guess, until we see it, together._

_I’ve got to get this letter sent while I have the chance, so I’ll stop rambling. Still hope I hear some more from you real soon - I can’t help but keep worrying that things might go wrong and I might not get the chance. I miss you, you know._

_‘Til the end of the line,_

_Bucky_

* * *

_September 12th, 1943_

_Buck,_

_You’re always a big sap, sleep or not. But I don’t mind. I don’t mind hearing about the heavy stuff, either—I’m gonna worry about you either way so you may as well keep me from thinking the worst. And you’re right, I think, about finding the words for the bigger things. It’s hard when you don’t even know what they are, when you don’t even have the words to say it to yourself, to go and tell someone else._

_Here I am on a whole other continent and we’re still hitting some of the same marks—I swear I ain’t slept in a week! The job is going great, but it’s been kicking up some since things are getting tougher. They like me so much they want me to go for another tour with them, out west this time, funny enough. So far it hasn’t been quite what we always thought it would be, but it’s good, Buck. There’s interesting people, good food, long nights in random hotels, and longer days just staring at a quiet stretch of sky in the distance. That part’s my favorite, I think, because it’s real lonely, but it’s supposed to be. Quiet, nothing to worry about, no burning need to do something, anything. Always been hard for me to find that._

_The hotels I think are my least favorite, actually, because that’s when I remember that it ain’t quite right, that there’s no brown-eyed jerk sitting on the couch and laughing when I_ ~~_knock my head on the doorframe for the fifteenth time_~~ _stumble in all bleary-eyed after a show._

_So, yeah, it’s great—holding the baby aside (which, two more the other day, baby girls with little bows that tried to grease my hair with slobber)—but not exactly like we thought, because you ain’t here. I wish you could be, I think you’d love the drives, Buck. It’s real quiet, real serene I think is the word. We gotta go travel in the spring, though, because you’ve gotta see the wildflowers. They just grow everywhere, sometimes they’re all you can see, just all wild and colorful and free. The fall is nice too, right now all the treetops are on fire, but I think you’d like the flowers. Wish I’d’ve thought to press you some, but that’d be tough to explain to the guys I have to go around with, huh?_

_Speaking of those guys, Cap is a good one. I know the posters and stuff are kinda showy, but he does really believe in something. He may not look like a soldier, but the types in charge say that’s more for the public’s benefit than anything, getting support and all that. I think he’s a good guy, anyway. Always wanting to be doing more to help. I’d leave him be. And if my word isn’t enough, I’ll do you one better—I’ve got so many sketches Buck, of you, of us, and you’d better believe that another word about my art or the people in it means you won’t ever see them all! And there’s some real gems in here, too. Remember that night that you were out on the fire escape, just watching the sky change by yourself because you’d been watching me and my fever like a hawk for days before it finally broke?_

_Of course you remember. You also remember how you let the door close and locked yourself out for the whole night, because I was still sleeping like the dead on the other side of our place. I woke up and I remember I was so surprised that my personal ghost wasn’t sleeping in the chair in the corner, and when I managed to get across the apartment and saw you slumped asleep against the glass, I just couldn’t help myself. I had to sketch it out real quick, my hands were a little shaky but you looked real sweet. Hair all ruffled, cheek pressed into the glass, just huddled up on that tiny little landing. Good thing it was summer, or you’d have had more than a crick in your neck!_

_Point is, I’ve got stuff you ain’t even seen Barnes. I’ve got all the sweet, precious ammunition I need to show everybody that you’re not as smooth as they think, and I will use it. I’ve got some of the two of us, too, and I’d like to think you wanna see those when you get home._

_I miss you Bucky. That at least I do have the words for. The rest, well, I’ll work on it. Keep you posted. What I can tell you now is that I get it, what you said about not getting the chance to hear from you again. Don’t you dare do that to me Barnes. I mean it._

_Mostly though, I just miss you._

_Love,_

_Steve_

* * *

_September 28th, 1943_

_Dear Stevie,_

_I can’t believe it. Steven Grant Rogers, are you trying to blackmail me? Knew you were never one to play by the rules, but this is a lot, even for you. I’ll have you know I am smooth, thank you very much. Was hardly my fault your ass kept me up for a week - if anything, the fire escape incident was totally on you._

_You got me, though. I’m sorry! I know as well as you do that I have no room to criticize your art, and I want to see all of it, the fire escape incident included. I can’t help but ask, though - did you really draw me all that much? I remember you carrying around that old sketchbook all the time, the one you saved up all year to pay for. You would draw everything you could see, it seemed like - our school, our families, a weird leaf you found on the ground, it didn’t matter. Not that you were too keen on showing it to me, or anyone else, really. Did you draw me too, back then? (If so, I bet you’ve got a lot of dirt on me, just saying.)_

_I keep thinking about that one day in high school art class, when they told us to draw portraits and you drew us. Do you remember that? I think you got in trouble for that, drawing two people and not just one, but I was so impressed with it. The way you made the lines all connect so that it didn’t really feel like two people, just two halves of the same portrait. Like something would’ve been missing if you took one of them away. Is that one still around? That’s one I’d really like to see again (provided I pass the test and keep my mouth shut about Captain America, of course. I’m working on it.)_

_I’m also busy working on making sure I make it back, making sure I still get to do all those things we talked about. You said I couldn’t leave you alone, and I’m gonna do my best not to. We all just went through something big, and I’m pretty shaken up, but I’m still here. I can’t say much about it, but even that rusty old fire escape is sounding pretty comfortable right now, if that tells you anything._

_Speaking of which, I hope you’re trying to get enough sleep. These army guys better not be working you too hard - I know you said you’ve been feeling better, but you know how bad things can get when you’re not taking care of yourself. I don’t want a repeat of that one fall when you insisted on finding some work so I wouldn’t have to put in as many hours at the docks. You worked way too hard and ended up with pneumonia, which took you out of commission for over a month and scared me half to death. Don’t want you going through that again, especially now that I’m not there to worry too much and make sure you make it through._

_The workload aside, that travelling sounds amazing, Steve. I’m sure the flowers are beautiful, but I’d almost rather see the leaves all changing colors. I feel like I’ve heard so much about what real fall is like, with crisp air and piles of leaves and all that, but you know I’ve never really seen one. Back home the leaves just get darker before they fall, and here they’re all turning the same shade of brown. Funny that I’ve traveled more than I ever thought I’d get to, but I still feel like I’ve hardly seen anything. Wish I could be there with you, giving my (very informed) comments on your art and keeping you company when you got time off. And before you call me a sap again, that’s not just because of you, you punk. (I mean, it’s mostly because of you, but also just about anything would beat being out here digging trenches in the mud)._

_Much as I want to keep writing, I guess I’d better wrap this up and try to take my own advice to get some sleep. Promise me you’ll do the same? I bet those hotel beds are softer than those godawful bricks we had at home, so you’d better be taking advantage of it._

_Anyway. Really hope to hear more from you soon._

_Love,_

_Bucky_

* * *

  
_October 15th, 1943_

_Bucky,_

_Believe it, jerk. And hey, it wasn’t like I had all that much choice in the matter either—just because my body wanted to try kicking the bucket didn’t mean I did. Seeing you all sweet and balled up like that was the highlight of that week!_

_Don’t worry too much about the whole Captain America thing. I guess I’m a little sensitive about it. I haven’t done much that people would call good, or useful, you know, and I got kinda miffed when you brought it up. It ain’t what I thought I’d be doing, it ain’t what I’m used to, but I like it and I’m good at it, and the only thing that’d make it better would be you tracking along to all these places with me. But, no matter what you say Buck, I wouldn’t actually keep you from seeing any pictures._

_First of all, there’s way too many to keep them to myself forever. I still have that old sketchbook, and I gotta say, you’re about half of it. Ever since it got to be just the two of us, it’s been mostly you. You’re good to draw. I’ve got young Bucky, covered in dirt from dragging his best friend through the bushes looking for Goldfinches, and I’ve got you on your first day at the docks, lifting boxes twice your size, and I’ve got you locked out on our fire escape and I’ve got you in your uniform helping me hobble outta some back alley. So yeah, I draw you a lot Buck, but I got a lot of the two of us, too._

_Second, ‘course you can see that one again. I kept it—still one of my favorite things I’ve ever drawn. It really does look like we’re two halves, and that’s how it felt when I drew it. That’s how it’s always felt, isn’t it? For me, anyways. I can’t remember a thing that was ever better without you there. Actually, I don’t hardly care to remember a thing without you there. You don’t gotta tell me if you’ve felt that, too...maybe it’s a stupid thing to say, anyways. Just, I’ve been realizing the more I talk to the guys on the tour, the more I start to make something like friends, that nothing really comes close to you. Some part of me just knows it never could, either. I dunno, it just seems like we’ve been closer than most friends ever get, though I guess I ain’t had all that many friends to compare, and that’s fine by me._

_So I’ve got that picture, ‘course I’ve got it, and you’re gonna see it. I’ve only got one copy, but I’ll make one first thing once I send out this letter (don’t want you having to wait too long for me to get the lines just right again). Or, you know, maybe you could see it in person. The tour’s been talking about going to Europe...it ain’t set in stone yet, but it’s out there. Turns out I might be going to you, maybe._

_Speaking of going places, and of sketches, there’s a sketch with this letter, too. If you haven’t seen it yet, let me explain before you go ruffling around for it, and if you have seen it, please keep reading anyways._

_I’m sorry, Buck. See, I’m in Arizona, Flagstaff. The tour ran out this way, and I know we had always wanted to go together, been talking about it since we were kids, but I just couldn’t quite help myself. You mentioned wanting to see the fall, see the trees all actually change, and one of the guys mentioned that even though the trees around here don’t change much, the earth and the rocks look just like fall—all shades of orange and yellow and red. So I went to the Grand Canyon. Maybe I shoulda saved it for when you got back, but I dunno, I wanted to give you something else to look at now that things are getting rougher, something else to hang on to. I wanted to make sure you got to see it, in color and everything (hope it hasn’t smudged too bad, either). I’m sorry, Buck. Damn it all to hell, the tour and the war and the Canyon, I just wish you were here._

_Again though, it’s looking like I might be making a stop over there, somewhere. Then I can apologize in person, for everything, for the Canyon and for some other things you gotta know that I just don’t want to tell you like this. Maybe then I can give you that portrait, maybe even give you some sugar for your coffee. I’m getting more sleep, promise. I know it’s getting tougher, but write me when you can. I always wanna hear from you Buck. I need to._

_Love you,_

_Stevie_

* * *

_November 10th, 1943_

_Steve -_

_Tight spot - can’t talk much. Thanks for the sketch. Hope Canyon was good to see. Really wish I could've been there. Good that you didn’t wait for me - not sure that’s gonna work out._

_Getting sent further out. Can’t talk details - probably can’t write much, at least for a bit._

_Please be careful with all this touring. Know you love getting into trouble no matter what I have to say about it, but if you can get out of it, best to not take that trip to Europe. Don’t wanna see you over here, understand?_

_Sorry - have to get this out ASAP. Want to say I miss you, and just in case - don’t do anything stupid, okay?_

_-B_

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Our sponsor today is Whiting Paper. Whenever pen is put to paper, whatever the occasion for correspondence—business, social, formal, covert love letters—there's a Whiting Paper for every purpose. When you think of Writing, think of Whiting.  
> -C.B., S


	13. Trapped

“Get down!”

Bucky dove into a trench just as an explosion rocked the ground. A moment later he felt a wave of mud displaced by the detonation splatter over his helmet, felt water leach into his socks as his boots sank inches into the perpetually wet earth. Even as the sound of the explosion rang in his ears, Bucky had a hard time registering the danger. Now that his unit had reached the mainland and was pushing solidly into enemy territory, the barrage of fire and its associated peril were almost routine. Bucky’s primary concern was now less about his immediate safety from enemy fire and more about his goddamned wet socks. Apparently, late fall in Italy meant nothing but constant rain, and Bucky didn’t think he’d been actually dry since September. He curled and uncurled his toes in his drenched boots, trying to stave off the prickling numbness already taking hold of his feet. 

“Behind us, get ready!” 

Bucky gritted his teeth, steeling himself to poke his head above the opening of the trench and fire off a volley of returning shots. He could taste dirt, could feel it grinding between his teeth. He could barely hold onto his rifle with so much mud caking his fingers. He was cold and miserable, but at least the cold provided some distraction from what awaited him outside the trench, both on the other side of the battlefield and what remained of his life back home.

Bracing himself against the rough earthen walls of the trench, gun at the ready, Bucky could feel the impression of a folded square of paper pressing against his thigh through the pocket of his uniform. Bucky hadn’t been without that piece of paper, Steve’s drawing of their apartment, since that night at the bar. As the weather grew colder and the days grew harder, he needed the reminder of its presence against his skin more than ever, and he made sure it stayed close to him even though he knew water and cold sweat were beginning to wear away at its edges. With every day that passed, Bucky felt less and less sure that he’d ever see that apartment - or the man who’d drawn it - again, but he’d be damned if he didn’t hold onto the fragments of those lost things for as long as he possibly could.

If Bucky was honest with himself, he’d know that the fragment of home tucked in his pocket wasn’t the only thing he had left. Somewhere in his waterlogged pack was a drawing of the Grand Canyon, even more beautiful than Bucky could have imagined it being in person. In spite of the lengths Steve had obviously gone to to get it to him, Bucky felt far less inclined to hold on to that particular piece of correspondence. Looking at that paper chasm just served to remind him exactly how far he and Steve had been driven apart. 

“Barnes! Eyes up!” 

Bucky forced his exhausted gaze away from the ground, willing himself to focus on the task at hand. If he didn’t make it through this, that Grand Canyon drawing would be the last he’d ever get from Steve. He’d never get to see the canyon for himself. Worse, he’d never see Steve’s bright eyes again, never watch his pretty hands tracing outlines in his sketchbook, never be there to patch him up after back-alley fights or get him medicine when he was sick... tired as he was, much as he wanted to simply give up and for once in his life stop fighting someone else’s godforsaken fight, Bucky couldn’t let that happen. There wasn’t much left to keep him going, but Steve was still out there, waiting for him. He had to be, Bucky told himself. He had to.

* * *

The heavy bombardment began to peter out as night fell, leaving the field so dark it was hard to tell a friend from an enemy. Bucky sank into a squat over the dirty ground with his rifle braced over his knees, halfheartedly trying to keep it out of the fetid mud puddles on the ground. He curled his hands into fists, tucking them into his armpits in a vain attempt to generate some warmth but only succeeding in painfully scraping his raw skin against the rough fabric of his uniform.

A pair of boots squelched in the mud beside him, and a moment later Dugan was crouched at his side, mimicking Bucky’s cramped posture in a futile attempt to stay dry.

“Rough one today,” he said flatly, not looking at Bucky, just staring at the opposite wall of the trench. 

“Yeah,” Bucky muttered. It came out gravelly, the word scraping against his throat as it forced its way out and sending him into a painful coughing fit that he desperately tried to smother in the sleeve of his jacket. 

Dugan shifted beside him, rummaging in his uniform pockets for a moment before drawing out something that looked like a tiny wad of wax paper. He set about unwrapping it, and the bittersweet smell of Army-issue chocolate immediately overpowered the stink of their surroundings. Bucky gulped down the saliva that had involuntarily flooded his mouth.

“How do you still have -”

Dugan wordlessly broke off a corner of the tiny piece of chocolate and held it out to Bucky. Bucky squeezed his hands into tighter fists to stop himself from snatching it away. His own rations had run out days ago. He’d been trying his hardest not to think about it, but the presence of food right in front of him had him feeling the effects more acutely than ever.

“I can’t -” he stuttered, forcing his eyes away from the little offering. “That’s yours. I can’t take it, it wouldn’t be fair.”

Dugan shook his head, still holding out the chocolate. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve been saving it, but I think you need it just as much as me.”

Bucky swallowed hard again, finally uncurling one of his fists and holding out his hand. He didn’t want to look weak, but he could only live on pride for so long, and it was hard to regret his decision to take the chocolate when its bittersweet taste washed away the acrid taste of dirt that had been clinging to his tongue. 

“Thanks,” he forced out, doing his best to meet Dugan’s eyes. 

Dugan shrugged. “Of course,” he said with a confidence Bucky could tell was strained to the point of breaking. “We’ll get more before we know it. This isn’t gonna be forever.”

Bucky’s mind drifted back wistfully to the months before they’d made landfall, all those warm days in Sicily where nights had been spent on cots under the roof of a tent and food had arrived at frequent enough intervals that, while he’d definitely been hungry, he’d never had to worry about starving. Those days were still a far cry from the real bed and warm meals he’d had in New York, but they still seemed downright heavenly compared to the past few months. 

Taking Italy by sea had been the most terrifying experience of Bucky’s life. Packed shoulder to shoulder with his men in a tiny boat like sardines, the raw fear and roiling waves combining until half of them got sick into their own helmets, the sounds of the first opposing bullets as they splashed into the water - Bucky hadn’t thought it was possible to feel worse than he had in those moments, just before stepping off the boat and having to fight his way through hell. And sure, maybe he hadn’t been so acutely _scared_ at any point before or after - but he truly had stepped off that boat into hell, and he was pretty sure he’d been stuck there ever since.

For a while after making landfall, Bucky’s unit had been stationed near the front, providing some extra manpower for the American push northward. Their days had been spent digging trenches in the dark earth and volleying off intermittent exchanges of fire with soldiers on the other side. When an order came from somewhere far above Bucky’s paygrade to send the 107th even further northward, to try a new tactic of invasion, Bucky had expected much of the same. He hadn’t anticipated the absolute strategic misunderstanding on the part of his superiors, hadn’t expected that his unit would find itself surrounded on all sides with little hope of escape. He hadn’t expected to be dropped straight into a trap. 

“You gonna be alright?” Dugan’s voice sounded next to him. Bucky realized his eyes had slipped closed, and he forced them open again. 

“Yeah,” Bucky said. He could hear the exhaustion in his own voice. “I just… know it won’t be forever, but I can’t help but think this ain’t gonna end the way we’re hoping.”

Dugan sighed. “Don’t say that,” he said without any real conviction. “Can’t afford to say stuff like that.”

Dugan pushed himself to his feet. “I’m gonna try to get some rest. You should, too.”

Bucky opened his mouth to reply, but found that he didn’t even have the energy to form words. He managed a slow nod before tilting his head back against the hard-packed earth wall.

In the inky darkness, Bucky could barely make out the mouth of the trench where it gaped open above him to reveal a narrow strip of night sky. It was cloudy, of course, portending yet another bout of freezing rain, but Bucky tried for a moment to imagine a clear sky. The stars would be beautiful out here, he thought. Without New York’s light pollution you’d be able to see all of them, pick out all the constellations where they hung in their respective corners of the darkness. For a moment, Bucky thought about a better world, one in which he could finally lay down his gun and crawl out of the stinking trench to look at the world from up above, from someplace between the winding scars they’d carved into the earth and the stars in the open sky. It was a nice thought, but it sent his mind spiralling back toward the Grand Canyon, toward Steve. Bucky wasn’t sure he’d ever been able to conceive of perfect things without imagining Steve somewhere in the midst of them.

He wasn’t upset that Steve had gone without him, he really wasn’t. He’d tried to communicate as much in the last letter he’d been able to send to Steve before things got especially bad, scrawling a quick note on a scrap of paper that he could only hope made its way out of the area before they’d been completely surrounded. He’d scarcely had time to get the words out, let alone choose the right ones, so he could only hope Steve got the sentiment of it. When nothing past the present was certain, it was hard to hold a grudge.

But he’d still be lying if he said it didn’t hurt, a little, thinking about Steve half a world away, living the life Bucky had never been able to do more than dream about. 

Bucky sighed and closed his eyes, still imagining the stars that had to be hanging somewhere above the heavy clouds. Were they the same ones Steve was seeing in the wide Arizona sky? Was Steve looking at them and thinking of Bucky the same way Bucky was thinking of Steve?

Eventually Bucky drifted into light and fitful sleep, still seeing stars on the backs of his eyelids. His dreams were full of Steve, silhouetted against the night sky. Bucky kept trying to reach out to him, but Steve’s shadow always eluded him, hovering somewhere just outside his grasp.

* * *

Bucky awoke to an explosion rocking the ground. He was thrown from his position leaning against the wall and ended up on his hands and knees, fumbling for his rifle in the mud. It was still dark, the sun just barely starting to brighten the sky underneath the thick cover of clouds, and Bucky remained wholly disoriented as he scrambled to pinpoint the source of the threat. The shouts of men rushing to their stations were quickly overpowered by the sound of another blast, this one sending clods of dirt raining down on him as he struggled to his feet. With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Bucky crept to the edge of the trench and dared to peer over the top. 

Where yesterday there had been flat ground ending at the horizon, today there were mountains. No, not mountains, Bucky realized after a moment - tanks, lined up side by side, so many that they obscured everything beyond them. Even as Bucky forced his half-numb arms to position his rifle and return fire, he knew it was useless. Nothing good could come of staring down the barrels of that many enemy guns. For a fleeting moment, he felt an incongruous sense of perfect calm. He was ready. It was over.

In the end, it wasn’t Bucky who made the call. Someone far above his station sent out a message of surrender, the barrage of fire stopping on both sides as men raised their hands in the air. Bucky followed suit, shoulders trembling with the effort of it. The absence of immediate danger also stole Bucky’s sense of resigned calm. As men in unfamiliar uniforms surged toward them, he could practically hear his heart thundering in his chest, louder than the blast residue still ringing in his ears. He had no idea what was coming. He’d known it wouldn't be good, but now something deep inside him was buzzing with reignited fear, telling him that something inconceivably terrible was on the horizon.

It didn’t matter, really. He had no choice, hadn’t since the Army had knocked on his door with a telegram saying he was to report for duty. As Bucky was herded along, one in a long single-file line of beaten-down soldiers, that sense of utter powerlessness felt stronger than ever - at least, until his adrenaline abated enough for him to be made aware of the soggy lump weighing down the pocket of his uniform. 

Steve’s drawing was still with him. He didn’t didn’t know if Steve, wherever he was and whatever he was doing, would ever find out what happened to him. Some small and bitter part of him wondered if Steve would even _care,_ or if he’d be happy enough in the new life he’d built that he’d be okay to just let Bucky go. 

But no matter what, Bucky still had the drawing, undeniable proof of the life they’d had _together._ That life may never have been all that Bucky had wanted it to be, but it had been enough - and now, as it started to slip from his grasp, holding onto it meant _everything._ Bucky tried to stamp out his rising dread with that thought. He’d had a life once. He’d loved someone, once. No matter what happened now, nobody was ever going to take that away from him. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -S


	14. Temperamental

Back when they were kids, they’d play soldiers. They might not have had the hats or wooden pop guns that other kids did, but they did just fine with Steve’s imagination and Bucky’s willingness to follow along. He’s been humoring Steve since day one, letting himself be dragged all over God’s green earth so that Steve could fight imaginary monsters, so that his coughing, huffing, and puffing little friend would smile. It was exciting, and it felt like adventure and glory and everything that Steve wanted, and Bucky right beside him to boot. His second-in-command, marching into battle over and over despite his insistence that he didn’t want to play. All it ever took was one look from Steve, even at that age, and Buck was toast. Steve knew it too, as much as he pretended to come by all his wins honestly. 

He never should’ve made Bucky play. Looking at the greyed and haunted faces of these soldiers—some of them younger than Steve himself—he couldn’t help but flip through his childhood searching for just  _ how many times _ he had wheedled and whined for Bucky to be a soldier with him, for Bucky to “get shot” so that Steve could avenge him. And now Bucky was a soldier, a real soldier, and Steve might have had some bells and whistles but he was still just playing. It was obvious from the painfully spick and span lines of Steve’s clean reds, whites, and blues against the rusty, irregular splashes that many of the soldiers wore. He tried to stick to those who were associated with the show and told himself it was so that he could prepare for the night’s performance, and not because he couldn’t bring himself to look anymore soldiers in the eye knowing that resentment and scorn would be written all over their face, and that any face might be the one he wanted to see the most. 

He was still hoping to see Bucky here, of course he was, but he couldn’t help the fear and more than a twinge of anger when he thought about how his last letter had been answered. After weeks of waiting on the edge of his seat for some sort of response, that hurried little paragraph had been damn near crushing. Steve had spent the weeks since trying to reason with his mounting fear that maybe Bucky saw something in his letters that he didn’t want to see, no matter how probable it was that he was just in a tough spot and hadn’t gotten any of the desperate, vaguely apologetic letters Steve sent before leaving for Europe with the tour. 

Maybe if he hadn’t gone to the Grand Canyon, and just after Buck seemed to be warming up to the idea of Steve doing some big new job, too. It had seemed alright there for a month or two, as good as it could be writing Bucky from another continent and unable to really see what was happening. Steve had thought that something was starting to happen, something he wasn’t sure how to deal with but that seemed to hide in the lines of every new word, the shapes of every familiar memory. He had almost thought that Bucky felt it too, but after all, that could’ve been the problem. 

If he were being honest, then Steve would have to admit that he was avoiding looking the soldiers in the face because he didn’t want to know what he would find in Bucky’s eyes, in the slant of his mouth, in the crinkle of his brow. He didn’t want to see the resentment. Resentment that Steve was only playing the soldier, and that he had lied, and that one of the only true things he said was almost as painful as the lies, all that Steve thought he could handle, but if Bucky knew, if he had seen the shift in Steve’s heart and been disgusted at what he found, then the end of the line might be much closer than either of them had thought before. 

It was perfectly possible that what Buck had said had in fact come to pass—that his regiment was in a bad place and the letters had stopped coming and going, that he had to write that damned letter as fast as he could and didn’t think a thing of it—but was that really any better? Bucky’s hatred would be better than his absence, in the long run.

“Captain!” A harried voice called out from somewhere behind Steve. “Captain Rogers!”

Steve ignored the snickers of few passing soldiers in favor of turning to face the approaching young man with a smile. “What can I help you with, son?”

“Producer asked me to find you, said you don’t need to help unload anymore and he’d rather have you backstage prepping for the show.” 

The kid looked nervous, as if he didn’t know whether he was really supposed to be telling Captain America what to do. Steve smiled as winningly as he could—though it still felt like pulling on a pair of gloves that just didn’t fit quite right—and nodded. “Lead the way.”

The pair walked swiftly in the direction of the stage, Steve striding with painfully measured confidence while the young man plodded along in an attempt to match his pace. He still looked a little bit like a spooked horse, and Steve couldn’t attribute it wholly to his being asked to fetch the star of his show because at that moment Steve realized he already knew him. Not explicitly, they had never actually exchanged words, but the more Steve side-eyed the kid the more he remembered seeing him around, standing tall, not curling and scampering like he was now. 

“Son,” Steve asked, startling the young man out of his determined reverie, “what did you say your name was?”

“Oh, I didn’t, actually. Sorry, sir. Keller, Grant Keller.”

“Well Keller, what’s got you so nervous?”

“Nervous, sir?” 

Steve slowed his pace to something more comfortable, more suited to a conversation between two young men, and shrugged in the offhanded way he had seen Bucky use so often to get what he wanted. “You’re shaking like a leaf, Keller. Something’s got you spooked, was just wondering if I should be worried.”

“You? Oh, no sir,” Keller laughed. “I don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about. I don’t think any of us do, really, it’s just this business with all the captured soldiers. Really makes you think. They’re all supposedly far away by now, though, so like I said, nothing to get too twisted about.”

Steve hadn’t felt this cold since before he got the serum, and for a second, he had to glance down to remind himself that he wasn’t sick and alone in the apartment back in Brooklyn. “Captured soldiers? I haven’t heard anything about that.”

“Well, it’s the rest of the guys, sir,” Keller looked sheepish now, as if he knew why Steve had avoided the soldiers’ company or else he saw something sharp in Steve’s expression that urged him to caution. “They’ve been a’talkin about it something fierce. Saying they saw crazy things, and 400 soldiers gone!”

It didn’t mean anything, necessarily. There were lots of soldiers, and when the world was at war, there were lots of tough spots. Lots of people who couldn’t get around to sending letters, or just didn’t want to, for one reason or another. “Four hundred,” Steve whistled. “No wonder they’ve been talking.”

“You’re telling me, sir.” Keller was animated now, his previous hesitation thawed by Steve’s mild reaction. “They’re saying they were just overrun, sir, but I think they’re wrong. From what they say, it sounds like the Devil himself is what they—”

“And who,” Steve interrupted, “who exactly are they? The ones who are talking.”

“The boys from the 107th. Well, the ones that’re left, anyways.”

Keller plodded ahead for a few paces, unaware that his escortee was frozen in place, heart pumping harder than it ever had even before the serum. “The 107th.” It wasn’t a question. The words were less words and more a breath, a single fragile exhale into the chasm that had opened suddenly at Steve’s feet. 

The words sat there, hovering, as Keller turned and took in Steve’s carefully neutral expression. “...Sir, is something wrong?”

“Who.”

“I—” Keller glanced around with obvious unease, before turning back to Steve. “I don’t understand. Who?”

“Who’s missing? Do they have names? A place? Anything?”

“No, sir. At least, nothing solid to—”

“Dead? Are they dead?”

“Alive, they think. Somewhere in Austria by now. But sir, I really don’t understand, did you know someone who—”

“Captain Rogers!” The booming voice of the show’s producer broke through the growing fog of Steve’s panic, and made him take a few steps back from where he had—apparently—been getting progressively closer to Keller. “Just the Star-Spangled Man with a Plan I wanted to see.”

The producer glanced between Steve and Keller, possibly reading some of the tension in the air before electing to ignore it in favor of clapping a hand on Steve’s shoulder and steering him in the direction of the stage. “Not like you to be lollygagging around when there’s work to be done, Rogers.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Steve twisted to gesture back to where Keller stood, “but I—”

“Never you mind, son. Just put on a good show—lord knows these guys need it.” The producer’s grip brooked no argument, and Steve followed along silently, the surety of his stride in stark contrast to the snatches of half-formed thoughts swimming through his head.

Steve tried desperately to hold on to just one, to pluck one of the frantic cries out of the whirlpool so that he could examine and address it, but the only thing cutting clearly through the litany of panicked questions buzzing behind his teeth and the monotonous clop of left, right, left, right, left was a single word:  _ Bucky. _

As the producer tugged Steve by the arm up the steps to backstage and directed him to get into costume, Steve knew again that Bucky alive and hating him was infinitely better than Bucky captured or dead or worse. And he was captured, Steve reminded himself—Keller had said they were alive. Hesitantly, but it meant there was a chance. And if Buck was here now and just didn’t want nothing to do with Steve anymore, well. Alive and hating him. It would have to be enough.

Steve dressed in a daze, stretching the suit over his steady arms and legs, and vaguely he noted that before the serum his heart had only beat this quickly right when he realized he couldn’t breathe. It had always slowed down then, the longer the condition persisted, and brought with it the hazy comfort of something sweet and calm and beyond his reach. Now there was no relief from the mounting fear. He would have called it paralyzing, except his body had thankfully kept moving without his conscious input. He only realized when he was staring out the holes in his mask at the gathered soldiers, hidden behind a wing of the stage, that he was waiting for something. 

His cue—there it was. The dancers parted, and Steve noted vaguely that they were getting closer, or he was. He was walking onto the stage, body propelling his unwilling mind back into the present. His face split into a ragged smile, the corners of his mouth tugging his dry lips as taut across his face as they could go, and he stared out into the faces of hundreds of soldiers who may or may not have been James Buchanan Barnes, but who were for some reason here in front of him anyways. The lights from the stage suddenly felt blinding, and as he tripped through his lines Steve felt himself begin to sweat more than he had during the first show when he had been nervous as all hell. Not that anyone could tell with the rubber suit.

Rubber suit, wooden shield—someone shouted out something about Captain America and paper bullets; he couldn’t make it out but the laughter was clear. Captain America. There. Steve looked out at the blurred faces of the audience while he started bitching about war bonds and suddenly felt sick to his stomach. That at least was a familiar feeling. 

Bucky Barnes was gone. There was no way in hell—Steve had been around for days and nothing from him. Not that Buck would know Steve was there if he hadn’t been getting his letters, but  _ Captain America _ was there, and as far as Buck knew that meant Steve, too. Could he really believe that Bucky wouldn’t be tripping over himself trying to get someone to take him to Steve? To get someone to direct him to the skinny little punk that was risking a flareup of his chronic something-or-another by gallivanting off to Europe in the middle of a war when he was specifically told not to, and risking more besides by increasing the edge of something in their letters that Steve still wasn’t sure Buck noticed or appreciated. As much as there was a part of him clutching the Good Book and hissing that Buck wouldn’t want anything to do with such a... _temperamental_ character as Steve, he just couldn’t get over the part of him that stubbornly insisted that Bucky wouldn’t care. Or if he did, that the worst he’d do would be to tell Steve to leave off, or maybe knock out a few teeth, before he tried to wrap him up in a blanket and send him back stateside. 

The sick feeling in the pit of his stomach wasn’t going away, and as he tried his best to remember from what side Hitler was supposed to make his stealthy approach and to figure out how he could get off the damned stage right now, someone took to shining down on him. 

“Hey!” Steve was jarred into focus by a muddy boot soaring through the air and connecting with his stomach. “Bring back the dancing girls!”

In a moment, he had decided. “You got it,” Steve muttered under his breath while he strode off the stage, into the wing, directly passed the frantic show producer who was hissing at him to  _ get back out there and finish the damn job, sir _ . Steve kept walking, only pausing once he had cleared the stairs leading up backstage and could wrench the nearest soldier from their purposeful marching.

“Where’s Grant Keller.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is brought to you by War Victory Comics. Featuring America's greatest comic artists, War Victory Comics says, "Buy War Savings Bonds!"
> 
> -C.B.


	15. Farewell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for depictions of respiratory illness in this chapter!

Bucky thought he remembered every time Steve had struggled through a bout of pneumonia. There was the first time, back when they were kids, when Steve had been gone from school for a month and Bucky had hardly been able to stand it, eventually marching up to the Rogers’ apartment and demanding to see his best friend. He’d spent that month reading comic books by the side of Steve’s bed, making sure to hold them up so that Steve could see the pictures inside. There were the times when they were teenagers, when Steve’s mother was almost as frail as her son and Bucky took over the duties of finding Steve medicine and propping him up in bed when he couldn’t breathe. Nobody asked him to do it - he just did it. It had just felt right. Then there were the most recent years, with Steve’s health in perpetual decline. Bucky had spent days on end sitting awake in the ratty chair in the corner of Steve’s room, just watching the slight up-and-down motions of Steve’s chest as his breath rattled in his lungs. He’d never been one for praying, but on those nights he came pretty damn close. 

Bucky had thought he had a pretty intimate understanding of it, of what it meant to suffer like that, from all those years he’d spent watching Steve fight through it. Now he was beginning to realize that, for all that time, he’d really had no idea.

Bucky stood doubled over on the factory floor, his chest burning as he hacked up something thick and bitter. It felt like there were bricks piled up on his chest, shrinking his lungs and forcing him to fight for every tiny amount of air he managed to draw in. The cough he’d picked up on the front had clearly decided to stick around, and the long days of backbreaking labor and malnutrition he’d endured since his capture were only making it worse. Unable to help it, he reached out a hand to steady himself against the stationary edge of the conveyor belt in front of him in order to stop his knees from giving out. 

“Hey! You!” As soon as Bucky’s hand came into contact with the machinery, a shout rang out in heavily accented English. Still preoccupied with the task of trying not to pass out, Bucky ignored it. “You there!”

Despite his swimming vision, Bucky suddenly became aware that there was a shadow looming over him. He dragged his eyes away from the ground to take in the sight of a uniformed guard glaring down at him.

“Did anyone tell you to stop working?” the man asked. Bucky gritted his teeth, remembering his training. Don’t show weakness, don’t give them anything, only say your name, rank, and number if you absolutely have to. Bucky swallowed a mouthful of something that tasted like blood and elected to say nothing.

Wrong decision. Apparently deeming that Bucky’s silence had gone on for a beat too long, the guard balled one of his gloved hands into a fist and aimed a swift blow at Bucky’s jaw. By the time he felt the pain explode across his face, Bucky was already on the ground.

“You do not stop working until we say to stop working,” the guard said. “Now get up. If you can. If not… we are going to have to take you to the infirmary.” 

At the mention of the infirmary, Bucky’s blood ran cold. He was hardly the first one here to collapse on the job, physically unable to continue assembling whatever vehicles or munitions they were assigned to complete that day. The guards seemed to enjoy making examples of those men, publicly dragging them out of the factory in the direction of the “infirmary.” Everyone who remained knew just how much of a misnomer that was. An infirmary is somewhere you go to get better. Getting sent to this infirmary meant something else; if you went in, you weren’t ever coming out. 

Sufficiently intimidated by the threat, Bucky pushed himself up to his knees, but found that he couldn’t quite get his legs under him in order to stand. With so much energy going into simply not keeling over, he physically didn’t have any left to get up. A slow smile was blooming over the guard’s face, as though he was just waiting for Bucky to fall again, but the smile dimmed when another hand wrapped itself around Bucky’s arm. Bucky felt himself being pulled to his feet, and he stumbled to lean against the conveyor belt in an effort to stay that way.

“See? He’s fine,” Bucky heard someone say beside him. 

The guard’s attention snapped to the owner of that voice, Bucky all but forgotten. Bucky looked over to see the soldier that had been working next to him staring defiantly up at the guard. 

“Do not tell me how to do my job again,” the guard said softly, somehow managing to sound more threatening than he had when he was shouting. “Or there will be consequences.” As he spoke, he reached for his waistband, where a small pistol sat waiting in a holster. Lightning-fast, he drew the gun, flipping it backwards and bringing the grip end down on the soldier next to Bucky, who crumpled dazedly to his knees. 

“Back to work!” the guard bellowed, lingering for a moment on the soldier struggling back to his feet before turning back to continue his rounds.

“Thanks,” Bucky whispered hoarsely once he was sure the guard was out of earshot.

“Yeah,” the soldier said, ghosting his fingers over the lump forming above his eye before returning his focus machinery in front of them. “Better not make me do it again. What’s your name?”

“Uh, Barnes. Bucky Barnes.”

“I’m Falsworth. And that’s Dernier,” the soldier said, gesturing to the man working on Bucky’s other side, who gave a subtle nod of acknowledgement. “One of our men got taken back there a while ago. We aren’t sure what they did to him, but we haven’t seen him since. We’re just hoping to make sure the same doesn’t happen to anyone else.”

“That’s -” Bucky tried to reply, but the effort sent him coughing again. It burned fiercely. This time it was blood for sure. He dropped the wrench he’d been shakily holding and tried to surreptitiously wipe his mouth with his palm.

“Don't talk if you’re going to do that,” Falsworth hissed, eyeing the dark red droplets staining Bucky’s hand. “You need to keep a low profile if you want them to leave you alone. Got it?”

Bucky nodded and regretted it when the world kept moving even after he stopped. 

“Good. Just keep working, okay?”

Bucky tried. He tightened bolts on pieces of machinery as they moved down the line, marked off inventory on a clipboard with a dull pencil. The whole time his chest ached and stars fuzzed at the edges of his vision, occasionally forcing him to drop what he was doing and grip the edge of the conveyor belt just to stay upright. 

When the bell finally rang to signal a change in shifts, Bucky felt so ill that he barely even registered the sound. Dernier had to nudge him to get him coherent and stumbling away from his station, back toward the cramped cells in which they were held. The modicum of relief he felt at making it through another day was short-lived when he considered what would happen next. Tomorrow would be no different than today in terms of work, and Bucky knew that whatever had taken hold of his lungs was only getting worse. It was only a matter of time before his body gave in, exhausted and unable to function. Somewhere in the haze of his thoughts, Bucky caught himself hoping that, whenever that moment came, he’d be dead before anyone had the chance to get their hands on him.

* * *

Bucky spent most of the night in the cell shivering. At least, he thought it was night - in reality, he had no idea, hadn’t seen the sun in who knew how long, just measured the passage of time by shifts in the factory and time in the cell. He couldn't decide if he was hot or cold; sweat was soaking through his shirt even as chills ran up and down his spine. Eventually he couldn’t stand it anymore, the constant cycle of tugging down the collar of his shirt to get some air and immediately pulling it up again when he got too cold, and he shoved his shaking hands into the pockets of his pants in an effort to keep them still. 

Bucky realized with a jolt that his pockets weren’t empty like he’d expected them to be. Without even looking, he recognized the shape he felt as the pencil he used for inventory - dazed as he was, he must have shoved it in there and forgotten about it. He knew there’d be hell to pay if anyone discovered that it was missing from the factory floor, but Bucky was so tired that he had a hard time caring. He glanced around to make sure that the other men in the cell were asleep before pulling it out and turning it over in his hands, contemplating.

He entertained a brief fantasy of using the pencil to aid in some wild escape plan, sharpening it to a point and wielding it in the face of every guard that had beaten him as he fought his way to freedom, but even his fevered near-delirium couldn't convince him that that was a good idea. Instead he just stared at it, marveling at the simple fact that, in this place where nobody was permitted to have anything, he’d managed to take something for himself. 

Upon hearing the footsteps of the night guard making his rounds, Bucky went to shove the pencil back into his pocket, but stopped short. There was something else in there, almost indistinguishable from the lining of the pocket. He held his breath as the footsteps passed, then rushed to pull out the other object.

As soon as he saw it, Bucky’s already labored breath caught in his throat. It was Steve’s stupid drawing, still wadded up in the pocket of the same muddy uniform pants he’d been wearing at Azzano. Some small part of him had always known it was there, but with sickness stealing more and more of his presence of mind every day, thoughts of the drawing had slipped away from him, a lifeline he hadn’t quite managed to grasp. The paper was flaky and water-damaged, so delicate it looked ready to fall apart, but Bucky still carefully unfolded it to see the drawing within. It had been through so much wear and tear that it was pretty much ruined, but he could still make out the faint impression of two pairs of newspaper-filled shoes, side by side in the corner of the page. If he’d had the energy to, Bucky thought he might have cried.

 _Sorry, Steve_ , Bucky thought, remembering the look on Steve’s face when he’d seen the telegram informing them that Bucky had been drafted. Part envy, part betrayal, and part something else - something that, if he hadn’t known better, Bucky would have gone so far as to call fear. One look at Steve that day and Bucky had vowed never to do anything to make him feel that way again. But he’d failed. Bucky squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out the mental image of Steve receiving the inevitable next telegram. _The Secretary of War expresses his regret that Sergeant James Barnes has been reported missing in action…_

Bucky couldn’t quite wrap his mind around the idea that that would be the end of it - all those years of friendship and love, if only one-sided, and letters traveling all the way across the sea, fizzling out with one measly telegram from the US government. It wasn’t right. There was so much more that Bucky still had to say to Steve, all those things he’d been sorting through since they were barely more than kids but that he’d never quite found the words to express. 

Another burning ache radiated through Bucky’s chest, bringing with it another coughing fit. Something bloody dropped from his mouth to the paper in his hand, a garish match for what remained of the red scarf sitting on the charcoal couch. It was now or never, Bucky realized, heart hammering as he looked down at the stain. Maybe he’d never be able to tell Steve everything he’d always wanted to, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t say it now. He hadn’t yet lost the power to quantify those things, to make them real. Steadying the stolen pencil in his trembling grip, Bucky flipped over to the blank side of the drawing. He took a deep breath, willing his shaking hands and foggy mind to work together one last time. Then, in tiny, cramped print, he wrote a letter.

* * *

_Dear Steve,_

_Wow, where to start, huh? Gotta say, I never thought it was gonna end like this. You’d think all those war games we used to play when we were kids would’ve tipped me off, but no such luck. (Though those usually did involve me dying gloriously in your arms, not alone on the floor of some factory in the middle of fucking I-don’t even-know-where, so you gotta cut me some slack for not realizing this would be it.)_

_As long as this is it, though, I figured I ought to say some stuff to you. It’s kinda been on my mind for a while - I just couldn’t ever figure out how to say it, or I guess if I wanted to say it at all. Not like I’ve got anything to lose anymore, though. Don’t even gotta worry about how you’re gonna react. So here goes._

_I love you._

_God, Stevie, I love you, but it’s so much more than that, even. I’ve loved you since we were kids. I’ve loved you since before I even knew what loving was, really. There was never even a question in my mind. I met you and some part of me just knew, even then, that it was always gonna be you, only you._

_And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry that I feel this way, when we’re friends and we’ve built this life around each other and we should be able to share everything with each other. I’m sorry I’ve been holding on to this for so long, when I should’ve just manned up and told you years ago and learned to deal with the consequences. I was never as brave as you were, though. And I was never as brave as you thought I was, either. I couldn't do it._

_I just never wanted to ruin it, you know? I felt like I loved you too much to have you out of my life, even if that meant I could only ever love you from the edges of that life. I think I was wrong about that, though. I mean, it’s true - I hardly know what I’d do without you, seeing as you’ve been dragging me around since we were six years old, you punk. I just think a life spent pretending I’m gonna look at one of the gals in the dance hall one day and feel what I feel when I look at you wouldn’t have ended up being much of a life at all._

_But I guess I shouldn’t have spent so much time worrying about that. It’s bad now, Stevie, it’s really bad, and I’ve got a feeling I’m not gonna make it home. You’ve got no idea how much I miss you, how much I wish I could be at our apartment right now, sitting with you on that god-awful lumpy couch and listening to the radio and watching you draw and just… being. We always used to talk about travelling out west and doing all those great things, but now that I’m thinking about it, all those normal evenings we spent at home just talking about that stuff had to be a hundred times better than actually doing it ever would’ve been. That was everything to me, Steve - just you and me, together against the world._

_Wish I could keep going, but my head’s killing me, and I think I’m gonna run out of paper anyway. (That one’s on you - couldn’t have sent me a bigger drawing, huh?) You already know what I’m gonna say, but I’ll say it anyway - please, please take care of yourself. I love you, you know? Always will._

_Bucky_

By the time he finished writing, Bucky could barely hold his head up. Illness compounded with the release of so many years’ worth of pent-up emotion had left more drained than he could ever remember feeling. He had just enough lucidity to fold up the makeshift letter and reach down to shove it into the space between his boot and his grimy sock before he felt his eyes closing, sending him into a deep and dreamless sleep. 

* * *

As soon as he managed to claw himself into something resembling consciousness, Bucky knew something was wrong. He couldn’t focus his eyes - everything around him was a blur of colors and shapes and sounds that refused to make sense. 

“Barnes. Hey, Barnes, wake up.” Bucky squinted, and the shapes hovering above him came slowly into focus. He was able to make out the faces of Falsworth and Dernier, staring worriedly down at him.

Bucky opened his mouth to reply, but even if he’d been able to talk he wasn’t sure what he would have said. He settled for groaning and closing his eyes.

“No, no, you have to get up. It’s time to go to work.”

Bucky could hardly string thoughts together, but somewhere in the recesses of his mind he recognized the urgency of Falsworth’s tone. He went to push himself up onto his elbows, but found he couldn’t even do that. He fell back, setting his head throbbing anew when it came into contact with the concrete floor.

“Is there a problem here?” A knife-sharp voice cut through Bucky’s headache, accompanied by another blurry shape hovering at the edge of his visual field. 

“No, sir,” someone spoke up for Bucky, who couldn’t quite get enough air in his lungs to make words. 

“I suggest you move along, then,” the new voice said coldly. “It would be a shame if something were to happen that landed all three of you in the infirmary, no?”

There was a sigh, and then the sound of footsteps, growing softer as they moved away. In their absence, Bucky suddenly felt very cold. He tried to curl in on himself, but was stopped when a boot came into contact with his stomach. It was hardly more than a nudge, but it sent Bucky spiralling into a coughing fit all the same. He spat weakly, trying to rid his mouth of the fluid he was continually hacking up.

“What are you waiting for?” the voice asked. It was a guard, Bucky realized dimly, it had to be. “Are you not going to join your friends?”

Bucky made another shaky attempt to get up, but he knew he wasn’t strong enough to make it. He’d never been strong enough for any of this, he thought. 

“No?” the guard said, tone dripping with mock disappointment. “Pity.” 

Bucky felt hands digging into his burning skin, felt the world flip sickeningly upside down - or right side up? - as the guard pulled him to his feet.

“Come with me.” Still unable to find his footing, Bucky dropped to his knees, forcing the guard to drag him out of the cell. Half-conscious, he only dimly comprehended the route they were taking: a long, narrow hallway that got darker the further they travelled, as though the very walls were closing in on them. The most coherent thing Bucky was able to register was dread. Something far bigger than him was swallowing him whole, consuming him, and some part of him knew that Bucky Barnes wasn’t going to make it out intact. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -S


	16. Unaccounted For

“Well, you see sir, it’s just that I don’t think Colonel Phillips really wants anybody to drop in like this, you know?” Keller trotted nervously a few paces ahead of Steve, moving pretty quickly for someone protesting that they shouldn’t be leading him anywhere.

“It’s official business.”

“That you’ve said, Captain Rogers, but I just don’t know what you wanna try and do here—what you can do!”

“That’s not for you to worry about, Keller.”

“Look, you don’t get it, he really—well, he’s just not that fond of you from what I hear—”

“Keller,” Steve paused to grab the young man’s shoulder, forcing him to come to a halt and stare up at Steve. “Nobody needs to know it was you brought me to him. This is my problem. Now tell me,” Steve gestured to the cluster of unusually large canvas tents, “which one is his?”

The moment Keller pointed a slightly shaking hand to the middle of the group, Steve took off. There was a hint of guilt toying at the back of his mind—the kid wasn’t even a soldier, was just here because the show was, didn’t really deserve to be intimidated by Captain-freaking-America—but the man who could tell him whether there was a chance in the world for Bucky Barnes was somewhere in that tent and no matter how much Steve dreaded seeing Phillips again, he had to.

Steve marched straight into the large tent in the middle of the group, ignoring the soldier posted at the flap who was too confused about whether Captain America was an  _ actual _ captain to do more than ask why he needed to go inside. The ruckus barely drew the attention of Phillips, who was sitting behind a desk with a stack of reports a mile wide. Eyes never moving from the paper in his hands, Phillips called out, “If you need to talk, I’m busy.”

“You’re an experiment. You’re going to Alamogordo.” Steve took a small measure of pleasure from the way Phillips suddenly tensed, obviously recognizing the patronizing words he had given to a newly-minted super soldier back in New York City.

The man glanced up at Steve and raised one bushy eyebrow before returning his attention to the report in his hands. “Mr. Rogers, I thought you had a show on. Let me guess—they’d rather watch the dancing girls.”

Steve’s blood boiled for the first time in a long time, and he crossed over to the desk to stand directly in front of the man. “Colonel Phillips, we need to talk.”

Phillips set the report down and leaned back in his chair to stare at Steve. “I didn’t realize that  _ playing  _ Captain America gave you the authority to demand my attention. My apologies. What gives you the right to barge in here?”

“I’m not concerned about my right to anything, sir. I’m here for something else entirely.”

“If you’re here because you want to stop playing the soldier and pick up a real gun, I’ve already told you how I feel about that. I asked for an army and all I got was you. You are not enough.” 

Yeah, well, didn’t that seemed to be the pattern here. You wanted just a friend till the end of the line, you got  _ temperamental _ Steve Rogers. You wanted a soldier, you got Steve Rogers. You wanted an army, you got Steven Grant Rogers running around in a damn party suit, a grown man still playing soldiers. 

The Colonel waved his hand dismissively and moved to stand. “Bother someone else, Rogers. Pity Erskine isn’t here for you to get cross at—though I’m sure you remember why that is. If you need something for the show, anybody else can handle it.”

Steve slammed his hands down and leaned over the desk, forcing Phillips’s attention back to him. Something good finally came of this extra space he was taking up. “James Buchanan Barnes of the 107th.”

Their gazes warred for a moment before Phillips sighed and ran a face over his hand. “So, you’re here for that shitshow.” Seeing the sudden tension in Steve’s frame, he continued quickly, “Not Barnes, Rogers. The 107th. Four hundred men, just gone, and no one can tell me why it happened or who made the call.”

“Gone.” Steve’s white-knuckled grip on the edge of the desk drew a pitiful creak from the wood. “So they’re dead, then.”

“Dead, captured, MIA. They’re just gone, Rogers.”

“So you’re saying they’re alive?”

Phillips sighed, his stoic soldier’s mask slipping for a moment to reveal the kind of weariness that only comes from years of weighing lives like pawns. “Maybe, maybe not. Some of them.”

Relief, anticipation. If anyone lived, it would have to be Bucky. They weren’t at the end of the line yet. “Who?”

Phillips raised an eyebrow, mask firmly back in place and nonplussed in the face of Steve’s obvious desperation. “You really want me to run through the list of all the men we didn’t find dead in a ditch? I was under the impression you had someone special in mind.”

Steve swallowed the angry retort in favor of grinding out, “Barnes. James Buchanan Barnes.”

“A friend, huh?” Phillips pulled a different stack of reports towards him and began ruffling through, pausing every once in a while without seeming to notice how every furrow of his brow dug Steve’s fingers deeper into the edge of the table. 

Finally, Phillips hummed and tugged a sheet out of the stack, flipping and laying it down in between where Steve’s hands were busy fusing with the table. “James Buchanan Barnes, middle of the list. Unaccounted for.”

“Unaccounted for,” Steve would admit that the words felt better on his tongue than ‘Killed in Action,’ but not by much. “What the hell does that mean?”

Phillips whistled. “America’s sweetheart has a mouth. It means we didn’t find a body. Most of the regiment is unaccounted for, at the moment.”

“So you’re saying he might be alive.” Steve received only a nod in response. “Are you planning a rescue mission?”

“Yeah, it’s called winning the war.”

Steve couldn’t help the incredulous, huffing laugh that flew from his throat. “Winning the—but what about these men? Four hundred of them, captured and maybe alive?”

“Maybe. The key word there is maybe, Rogers.”

“No, Phillips. No. The key word is  _ alive _ . Your soldiers alive and being held in God knows what hellhole—”

“The key word, Steven, is maybe. We can’t go in for maybe.”

“Soldiers—American soldiers, sir!”

“Rogers, look.” Phillips seemed to crumble in his chair, even though his ramrod posture never wavered for a second. “I wish I could get them back, I do. Four hundred men lost, all at once, out of thin air. Believe me when I say that it doesn’t please me. But,” Phillips looked imploring at Steve, “I can’t risk anymore good lives on a  _ maybe.  _ I’m sorry, for you and for everyone else who’s going to have to leave it alone. But you have to, because I’m not going to do a goddamned thing.”

Steve struggled to keep his voice level as he posed his next question. “Do you even know where they are?”

Phillips shrugged. “We have a general idea, but nothing concrete.”

“Some men are saying Austria. Is that it?”

Phillips’s face shut down, and he finally stood, immediately beginning to make his way towards the second set of flaps in the tent. “What it is is classified.” 

The brief gleam of triumph in Steve’s eyes was gone by the time Phillips reached the flap and turned to speak to Steve over his shoulder. “Look, I’m sorry about your friend. But, this is what happens in war. They’re gone, Rogers, and you should get that in your head.”

Steve held Phillips’s gaze until the Colonel was forced to turn his back and let the flap close behind him. Steve waited tensely for a few moments, listening intently to the squish of boots through mud. When he was certain that the sounds were only getting further away, Steve rounded the desk and reached for the same stack of papers out of which Phillips had found Buck’s name, hoping for some indication of where they believed the men were taken. All he found were names, hundreds of them, all paired with a number and some variation of ‘not found,’ ‘MIA,’ ‘unaccounted for.’

He swore under his breath and set the stack down, looking around the room for where the actual report might be hiding. His eyes alighted on a set of filing cabinets in the corner, and he opened them to find out that they were—thank God for the orderliness of the military—blessedly organized by date. He removed the file for the last week and began flipping through looking for any indication of what had occurred, before he finally found mention of the 107th regiment. 

He skimmed the seemingly endless list of reports from officers and soldiers who were there—outmanned, overpowered, trapped—until he got to a page where Phillips had obviously typed up his own assessment of the situation. Steve read over his reasoning for abandoning the men quick enough that he didn’t have the chance to get angry before his eyes settled on a name:

“Kreischberg.”

After a quick glance to the two openings in the tent to confirm that no one was around, Steve folded the paper and hid it in his fist, wishing for the first time since his initial run in the suit that he had pockets, or any room to spare at all. His walk across camp was uneventful, despite the detour he took to retrieve one of his prop shields from his own accommodations. Judging by the cheers and whistles coming from the vague direction of the stage, the producer had made the wise decision to bring back the dancing girls. Steve’s pride didn’t have a chance to sting because he was too focused on getting to the outer edge of the camp before anyone thought to come looking for him. 

Days, weeks, years later, Steve wouldn’t be able to explain what he was thinking as he swung himself into the driver’s seat of the first unattended jeep he found. All he would ever be able to recall was a series of disjointed images, sensations, and sounds, all strung together into some semblance of sequence.

It wasn’t disorganized, or hazy—far from it. Steve would remember clearly the weight of the shield on his arm as he strode through the camp, the slight sunctiony pull of the mud on his boots with every new step, as if the earth itself was trying to hold him back from the one thing that mattered over anything. He would remember the beat of his heart behind his ribcage, and how it slowly extended itself outward to sit in his throat, press at his teeth, ring behind his eyes, until finally it seemed as if the entire camp was quaking. He would remember suddenly staring down at where his hands gripped the leather steering wheel, the unusual roughness of the seat—he had hardly ridden in a car, let alone driven one, and wouldn’t Buck laugh at the thought of Steve Rogers going near ‘one of those metal death traps’—and thinking  _ how. _ He would remember the way the sunlight glinted off of the key that had been kindly left on the dash, and the unsettling roar of the vehicle rumbling to life. 

He would remember hearing the distant mutters of confusion from a couple of someones, and how they grew louder when he shifted the gears and pressed one of the pedals like he had seen Buck do a handful of times, making the jeep jump forward a few jerky feet. 

And then, he was on the road. A road—a road to somewhere. There was a map in the glove compartment, he hoped, that would tell him to where, but that was for later, a few hours later, when his terror at the speed with which he was careening and bouncing down this road (barely a road really, a path) had abated enough for him to find the brake pedal so he could give himself two minutes on the side of the road to bring his breathing away from its current dizzying pace. 

And then, when he was ready to put away his fears in favor of moving forward and finding that map, he realized that when he grabbed his shield he must have also dug through his bags for his own winter jacket, which he slid on gratefully, and Bucky’s, which had been his constant companion since the tour moved overseas. Bucky’s jacket he folded and laid in the passenger seat, just far enough forward that he could see it out of the corner of his eye when he was staring down the road, daring it to hold him back. 

But before even that, he attempted to flatten the folded paper that held his salvation in the words ‘James Buchanan Barnes—Unaccounted for,’ and he tucked it into the inner breast pocket of his own jacket. Secured, calmed, focused, with the sharp instrument of absolution pricking at his heart, the last thing Steve would remember would be the way the grey winter sky turned to rust, and with it the pale moon to blood.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is brought to you by the Ford GPW, the best off-road capable light military utility vehicle in the business! Ford GPW—please don't steal one.
> 
> -C.B.


	17. HYDRA

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double upload today! This chapter covers Bucky’s ordeal while being experimented on by Zola – if that’s not something you want to read about, you can go to the next chapter and catch up on the same span of time from Steve’s perspective instead!
> 
> Chapter TW for medical experimentation, non-consensual drug use

The air was bitingly cold. That was the first thing Bucky realized as he came to, slowly, in a place that felt all wrong. He worked to figure it out, to understand why he couldn’t quite feel his body or sort the lights and shapes floating around him into categories that made sense, but his mind felt muddy somehow, working too slowly to piece together anything coherent. All he could register was the cold, hovering in the air around him, biting into his elbow and funneling its way into his arm.

_“Commencing procedure on test subject number 42. Initial sedative is being administered without complication.”_

His arm. The sensation of cold creeping through his veins worked to drag Bucky back to the present, into his own body. He could feel his arms lying at his sides, his legs sticking straight out beneath him. He tried to move, tried to pull away from the icy sensation at his elbow, but something stopped him. He was bound, he realized, strapped on his back to a surgical table under the glow of a harsh fluorescent light that hovered hazily somewhere just outside his focus. He thrashed against the restraints; he didn’t know what was happening, but he was alert enough to know that he didn’t want it to be.

_“Subject is experiencing minor distress. Increasing dosage of sedative to minimize potential complications with the procedure.”_

“You must relax,” Bucky heard a voice floating above him, echoing from somewhere that felt both close and very far away. “The procedure has already started. Struggling will only make it worse.”

“No, I don’t -” Bucky tried to talk, but even to his own ears it didn’t sound like words. The effort reignited a burning in his lungs, and his body struggled to cough through it. 

“You see? You are in no shape to fight,” the voice said. As it spoke, its owner bent over Bucky, replacing the sharp light with soft features. Bucky could just barely make out a round face, adorned with glasses and what looked like a bowtie. “We are simply trying to help you.”

“Are you… a doctor?” Bucky managed, trying to piece things together.

The man smiled. “Something like that.”

_“Preparing to administer the first injection.”_

“Ah, it appears we are ready,” the doctor said, almost gleefully. “I hope to see you on the other side.”

Bucky’s brain struggled to comprehend the various stimuli through a haze of chemical fog. Somewhere, a mechanical voice was talking about procedures and injections, words that sent fear shivering down Bucky’s spine even before he could fully grasp their meaning. By the time he managed to string them together in his mind, it was already too late. 

_“Commencing administration of the first injection.”_

Bucky’s dawning awareness of his surroundings was shattered as the ice turned to fire in his veins. Someone was screaming, and it took Bucky an inordinate amount of time to realize it was him. For just a moment, he could see the sound of his own scream, superimposed on the backs of his eyelids in sickening technicolor. Then everything faded to black.

* * *

Bucky drew in a deep breath, the air feeling cold and sterile in his mouth. It burned his throat, but he realized dimly that, for the first time in probably weeks, he could fill his lungs without a fight. Any relief he felt at that development was short-lived; not having to struggle for breath left his mind far clearer than it had been previously, and he was now more aware than ever of the peril he was in. 

_“Subject is regaining consciousness. First round of serum injections appears to have been carried out successfully.”_

Bucky tried to sit up, to get away from that voice and its scrutiny by any means necessary, but was stopped by a restraint wrapped around his chest, pinning him to the table. The movement only succeeded in setting the room spinning again, evidence that whatever they’d been pumping him full of was still in full effect. 

“I thought we had this discussion.” It was the man from before, his voice softer than the analytical one that crackled in periodically over some sort of speaker system, seemingly to give updates on his condition. Bucky wrenched his head to the side to get a good look at him. He was small and balding, most of his features hidden by a glare of light on the lenses of his glasses. Bucky’s eyes, still drifting in a manner he couldn’t quite control, zeroed in on the red smudge of the man’s bowtie, a stark contrast to the white of his lab coat.

“We are trying to help you, but you must remain still and allow us to work.” Something about those chilling words being said in such an incongruously soft voice made Bucky’s skin crawl. He felt his hands clench into shaking fists in spite of his knowledge of the futility of his situation. Even if he weren’t still strapped to a table, the burn of whatever they’d given him still lingered in his body, leaving his muscles twitching with what felt like exhaustion and ensuring he wouldn’t be able to pose much of a threat. He settled for working up a mouthful of blood-tinged spit and aiming it at his captor.

The doctor simply tutted disapprovingly. “Such manners,” he said, shaking his head. “What is your name, soldier?”

 _Soldier._ Bucky didn’t think he’d been called that in a long time; certainly not since he’d been captured. It was always _prisoner,_ or _American,_ or a whole variety of foreign words Bucky had only imagined were derogatory. Never _soldier_. He held onto the novelty of that comment for a moment, deigning not to answer the question.

“Very well,” the doctor said, sighing in mock disappointment. “It likely will not matter soon, if our previous subjects have provided us any indication.” 

_“Awaiting confirmation to commence second serum injection_ . _”_

“Proceed.”

This time, Bucky held on longer, long enough to feel his blood boiling, his insides trying to crawl their way out. He held on long enough to regret it.

* * *

“Barnes,” Bucky gasped as soon as he could catch his breath. This was torture, it had to be. 

“Sergeant.” Name, rank, and number, that was allowed. Moreover, that was all they’d asked for. Maybe giving it to them would be enough to make them stop. 

“32557038.” No matter what they did, he wouldn’t give them anything else. He wouldn’t. He _wouldn’t._

“Ah, Sergeant Barnes.” Bucky was seeing double, but could still make out the despairingly familiar visage of the man with the red bowtie hovering above him. “How wonderful to formally meet you.”

“What do you want?” It spilled out before Bucky could control it. 

The man gave him a disapproving look. “What, you have information for us? Kind of you, but that is not what I want.” He leaned closer to Bucky as though to ensure that he made himself heard. “I simply want a soldier.”

That hardly made sense. He was already a soldier, wasn’t he? Bucky wasn’t sure if the doctor had misspoken, or if the fog between his ears was preventing him from comprehending the words. Not that it mattered; there was that mechanical voice again, drowning out any semblance of coherent thought and leaving panic in its wake.

_“Ready to begin the next stage of the process.”_

Bucky summoned all his strength and threw himself against the restraints, not knowing what he’d even do if he managed to break them. The thought was hardly on his mind; all he could think was that anything had to be better than this.

“You are a fighter, aren’t you?” The doctor sounded amused. “Perhaps you should save this energy for after we have completed our work, hm? We can make great use of a soldier such as yourself, one so clearly willing to fight.”

Bucky growled, hardly registering the doctor’s words. His world seemed to have narrowed to him and the restraints holding him down, and he felt something rabid and animal overtaking him as he fought with everything he had to escape. But it was no use - he was trapped. 

_“Administering sedative to calm the subject before the next injection.”_

Still trying to pull free, Bucky felt his limbs involuntarily slacken. The world fuzzed out of focus, leaving him drifting somewhere outside of his body as the next injection was administered. Bucky only wished he could drift far enough not to feel it.

* * *

Things happened slowly, out of order. There were more voices, more faces, melding together with shadowy images, marching soldiers and explosions kicking up dirt. Bucky wasn’t sure what was real anymore, nor was he sure that he cared. 

“Barnes… Sergeant… 32557038… ” he kept slurring, though he wasn’t sure anyone was listening. 

“Tests” and “procedures” bled into each other, somehow no more real or imaginary than the ghostly war images playing at the corners of the room. Somewhere along the line, Bucky dimly caught on to a shift in the atmosphere; where previously there had only been the doctor and his infuriating amusement, there were not more people, their faces blurry and indistinct, murmuring excitedly as Bucky writhed on the table. Through the burning agony of the injections and the fuzz of static in his brain, he could only catch snippets of conversation, the words disembodied and seeming to float around the room.

“Fascinating…”

“Vitals are still stable…”

“Have yet to reach this stage of the procedure…”

“We are going to do great things, Sergeant Barnes.”

“Huh?” The sound of his own name dragged Bucky out of the fog and closer to what he thought must be reality, though at this point he couldn’t be sure.

“Ah, you are awake.” It was the doctor - of course it was. Bucky felt an unfamiliar current of rage run through him; he didn’t think he’d ever wanted to hurt someone so badly in his life. “You are proving to be a very fascinating subject. Our procedure has never gone so well. When we are finished, you will be able to do great things for us. It is… your destiny, I suppose.”

“No,” Bucky groaned. He didn’t want it. He hadn’t wanted any of this - the war, the experiments, anything - but no matter how he protested, it just kept coming, grabbing hold of him and twisting until he became something he hardly even recognized. 

“Listen to yourself,” the man said. “We are giving you a gift. We are helping you become who you truly are, don’t you see?”

Bucky shook his head hard in a vain attempt to block out the words but only succeeded in bringing on vertigo so strong he felt almost nauseous - another succinct reminder that he wasn’t going anywhere. 

“Do you want to know how this procedure works?” the man asked. He was watching Bucky struggle wearing a look akin to fascination, like Bucky was a bug he’d squashed that was taking a little too long to die. He didn’t wait for an answer before continuing. “It does not introduce to you anything that you do not already possess. It simply takes what is already inside you and magnifies it. Look at yourself - you are still alive, still fighting. Does it not feel right? Like some part of you was always meant to fight?”

Bucky’s mind was suddenly overrun with images of schoolyard fights and back-alley brawls, of black eyes and purple knuckles. Of stacked barrels toppling under the bullets from his gun. Of fields painted red. Of bodies in the grass.

“No, that’s not…” Bucky knew he sounded unsure and hated himself for it. Of course the doctor picked up on it, a wide smile blooming across his face as he caught sight of the uncertainty Bucky wasn’t quite able to hide.

“I think you know better than to protest,” the doctor said, leaning in closer until Bucky could feel his breath against his face. Even the ghost of that sensation was enough to make his skin burn. “You must know that, as a soldier, you are really something special. How many successful missions have you participated in, hm? How many of them succeeded simply because you were not afraid to do what needed to be done?”

As though the doctor’s imagery had conjured them, the hallucinations were ramping up with a vengeance. Bucky was seeing his surroundings through the scope of a rifle, watching shadows stumble and fall under the focus of his gaze. Reality fuzzed over almost completely, and Bucky felt for a moment that he was really out in the field, manning a weapon that didn’t feel like his, pushing through a mission with an objective he hadn’t chosen. It was enough to make him sick, and he tipped his head to the side to heave up nothing.

Hovering in limbo between two awful possible realities, vivid war scenes intermingling with the doctor’s smug, triumphant smile, Bucky felt something inside him break. He stopped trying to pull free and instead let himself drift - not far enough, he could never float far enough to save himself - but enough to let the doctor do his work. 

* * *

Bucky came back to himself in a dreamlike New York. 

It was so _real,_ blurry but so close to becoming clear. He could just make out the familiar city skyline in the distance, not quite there but almost discernible through the morning fog. He was… out on the fire escape, he realized slowly, watching the sunrise turn the sky from dark to wispy pink and purple and blue. Bucky felt a blissful smile split his face. He was _home._ At any moment Steve would be coming out to get him, to let him back into the apartment and tease him for being so forgetful, for locking himself out there all night.

Bucky waited, watching the skyline float in and out of focus through the fog. But something was wrong. It was cold, so cold, and he was alone. That wasn’t how this was supposed to go. Where was Steve? Surely he wouldn’t leave Bucky out here alone?

Bucky tried to open his mouth, to call out, but words wouldn’t come. All he heard was a distant groan, like wind blowing somewhere far away. 

_Come on, Steve…_ Bucky willed with all his heart to manifest him, to somehow make him real. He was so close, he had to be, Bucky could practically feel it. But it was getting colder, and even though the sun was rising the light was somehow getting dimmer, and it was getting harder and harder to feel out for him.

The sound of a distant alarm pierced through the dreamy fog, melding together with the sounds of people shouting and doors slamming shut. Bucky could have sworn he picked up on gunfire in the mix, but it was just as soon drowned out by the white noise in his head. The hazy images of New York splintered and broke apart, leaving Bucky hovering somewhere dark and unfamiliar. 

Right. Steve wasn’t here. Or rather, Bucky wasn’t there. He realized in that moment that he must be dying.

Heavy footsteps, a long shadow. Either it was a doctor coming back to finish him off or it was another hallucination coming to lead him away. Bucky found that he hardly cared which.

Someone was talking to him, and the voice was low and soft and somehow so familiar that Bucky felt himself being pulled towards it, away from the smothering cover of darkness that had overtaken his visions of home. Willing himself back into his own body, he blinked hard and forced his eyes to focus on… a bright blue helmet? The stars and stripes?

 _Oh, come on, not this guy_. Just his luck that the last face he’d ever see would belong to Captain fucking America. He must be dreaming after all.

But no, that wasn’t right either. Bucky blinked again, warmth flowing through him as things started to fall into place on the man’s face. Blue eyes, pulled tight in a worried frown. Unkempt blond hair, a crooked nose. Home.

“...Steve?”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -S


	18. Shade

The cold had never been his friend before the serum. It had always managed to crawl into his body and settle somewhere deep inside, uninvited and unwanted. The cold hadn’t been his friend then, and it seemed it wasn’t his friend now. 

He hadn’t actually felt the chill during the whole of the time he had spent in Italy, even though he was sure he could almost see it trying to wind its tendrils around him. It threaded through his hair, tugged at his hands and feet, but it hadn’t had the same penetrative power that it used to. Even when he crossed the border into Austria, where the hills were draped with more snow than he could remember ever seeing in New York in the winter, he was too warm with the fevered energy of the serum and the chase and _Bucky, almost to Bucky_ that it may as well have been summer. Once he got to Kreischberg, though, that changed. 

The disjointed but intense focus that Steve had felt as he drove the jeep away from the camp had settled with the sun, and by the time night truly fell he was shocked to find he only had one concern: When he got to Kreischberg, how would he know where to look? 

He shouldn’t have worried, and he almost chuckled as he recalled pulling onto the dirt road marked as the route to Kreischberg and driving for all of five minutes only to see an enormous factory complex straight ahead with nowhere else to turn. His amusement was quelled by a sudden shiver, and as he shifted in his vantage point atop one of the outer walls of the complex he was reminded of his predicament. Getting into the complex had proved surprisingly easy, but staring down at the multitude of buildings in varying shapes and sizes, Steve found himself frozen in place, almost literally. The second he had seen the place, looming so large in the distance that its shadow greyed even the snow that surrounded it, it was as if his skin, which had been bolstered by the novelty of his new size and health, had suddenly become paper thin. He gripped Bucky’s jacket tighter to him, wishing fervently that he could slip it on one more time but altogether unwilling to try. 

Good to know that some things could never really change. The blinding arc of a flashlight landing off to his left startled him out of his silent panic, and decided for him which direction to go. Right it was. Steve sped off in the opposite direction as quickly and quietly as he could, suddenly painfully aware of the fact that he was essentially clad in a skin-tight jumpsuit and carrying a wooden shield barely as wide as his shoulders. 

Getting down from the outer wall was too easy, with not a single guard in sight as Steve crept down the first set of stairs he could find, and that put him on edge more than anything. If there was a single thing he had learned from years of back alley fights and full on bar brawls, it was that the second things got easy it just meant they were about to get harder. Usually that only meant he was going home punch drunk with a new and interesting twist to the storyline of his nose, but today he had no way of knowing what it might mean. So he went silently, and inwardly he thanked God that the inside of the complex seemed to be cleared of snow so that he wasn’t leaving a line of footprints all the way to...wherever he was currently headed. 

The first stretch was the worst, crossing the seemingly endless and empty distance between the outer wall and the first set of buildings. His Ma had always said he was lucky, but he never believed her until he was finally sagging up against the shadowed wall of a frigid metal building. The double cover of darkness and shadow was another blessing, he realized, when he rounded the corner of the first building and almost walked into the path of two armed and uniformed men. After shrinking quickly back into the cover of the building, he attempted to make out the oddly-shaped red patches they wore on their arms. Swastikas, he assumed. But no—there were too many branches, all stemming from one large bulb. They had rounded the building before Steve could figure it out, but it left the niggling feeling in the back of his mind that something was off.

He didn’t have time to unpack that worry, as it suddenly seemed like the strangely attired soldiers were around every corner. For every one that Steve passed, another two appeared, waiting for him to slip up and step just into their line of sight. The low grade panic that had set in back on the outer wall began ramping up as Steve began to worry that even the fog from his heavy breathing would in a minute be enough to betray him. The tightness in his chest and the incessantly screaming warning bells in his head prompted him towards a building that looked low and wide, and away from which a group of ten soldiers were walking. Steve crouched around the corner from the door and strained to listen to the fading conversation.

“Think we’d better wait for the Alpha shift to come in?”

“Nah, you know them—always late, always drunk, always spoiling for a fight. Better we’re gone, and it isn’t like any of those Americans had enough brains before we got to them to realize we’re not right there.”

“Yeah, good thing about working them to the bone, beside getting to watch the little ones crack.”

The rough peals of laughter that followed made Steve’s stomach curl, and he forced himself to get a handle on his anger before he let his body respond automatically to the derogatory mention of “the little ones” and the insinuation that there were _Americans_ in there, which meant _Bucky._ The laughter continued to fade, and Steve chanced a glance around the corner—he could still see the crude group, but they seemed to be heading intently for the large concrete structure in the middle of the complex. Steve swung himself around the building and sped towards the double doors, wrenching one open just enough to slip inside and push it closed, breathing a sigh of relief when he heard the soft clink of the door slipping back into place. 

Silence pervaded the space, and darkness too, and it was only then that Steve realized that his eyes had slipped closed in anticipation of feeling some angered pounding from the other side of the door. But the door stayed shut, and there was the sound of a few soft exhales and a smattering of barely huffed laughter, and Steve opened his eyes to the sight of what looked like hundreds of faces peeking out from behind columns and rickety bedposts to stare just at him. A few of the men—definitely Americans, judging by the cut of their ragged uniforms—stood and took a few steps forward. 

Steve flipped Buck’s jacket over his shoulder from where it sat clenched in his fist and maneuvered his shield in front of him to better put the red, white, and blue on display. “Don’t everyone jump up at once. I’m looking for the rest of the 107th—am I in the right place?”

“You’re Captain America.” The first soldier to speak was tall, gaunt, like the rest of them, with a bit of an accent that Steve couldn’t place, but he seemed to hold himself a little taller than most of the others. At least, the ones Steve could see.

“Steven Rogers, at your service.” Steve almost lifted his left arm in a salute, but the weight of Bucky’s jacket stalled his movement. “I’m gonna get you guys outta here, but you gotta keep it down for that to work. I’m gonna need just a couple people—anyone in charge around here?”

The man who spoke held up a hand against the murmurs that were breaking out among the rest of the men, and another man stepped up beside him and turned back towards the barracks. “Keep it down. If this is our chance we’re taking it. Dernier, let’s talk to him.”

The two men walked up to Steve, who noticed that while the other soldiers’ eyes were still locked onto Steve, the room was entirely silent. Both soldiers stopped in front of Steve, and despite his height advantage, he felt the need to stand up straighter in the face of their dual stares. 

The one who had spoken first was again the first to break the silence. “I’m Dernier,” he jerked his head to the soldier at his side, “and this is Falsworth. And you’re Captain America.”

Steve nodded, and made every effort to look as calm and collected as these soldiers seemed. Falsworth spoke next. “So is this some kind of rescue?”

Steve nodded again, noting with relief the spark of hope that lit in both men’s eyes. “Thank God,” Falsworth sighed. His accent Steve could place—British, through and through. “I admit, I didn’t have much hope when you walked in here. Didn’t know they let you into the field at all. How many men are here?”

There it was. Steve couldn’t stop the wide, Captain-trust-me-America smile from spreading across his face while he replied, “It’s just me.”

He didn’t blame the men who had been listening to the whole exchange for groaning. To be waiting for an army and get a glorified toy soldier—that had to hurt. But standing in this room full of men run ragged, Steve knew that he had to meter his one-man march to Buck Barnes. He wasn’t much, but he was all these soldiers would get, and Phillips had only confirmed that. “Look, I’ve got a plan.” The least damning of his recent lies, if he were trying to rank them. “I just need you guys to tell me one thing first.”

Dernier glanced at Falsworth, who shrugged and nodded at Steve to go ahead. “Might as well. If you’re the only one here then I’m guessing this is our best chance.”

Steve took a deep breath, telling himself that it was a question that needed to be asked no matter how much he was afraid of the answer. “What do you know about Bucky Barnes?”

The sideways look that the two shared made Steve feel sick.

“He got sent to the _infirmary_.” The word carried a weight that Steve associated with terminal hospital visits and white lilies, with draft cards and empty beds.

Steve pressed on regardless. “Infirmary—so he’s here? Just, sick?”

Dernier pursed his lips and shook his head slowly. “Look, he was very sick. And when they take someone to the infirmary...well. We don’t know what they do down there, just that no one has ever come back.”

Steve’s gaze landed somewhere between his own boots and a fly crawling slowly across the stone floor, Dernier’s words ringing through his head. 

“Captain,” Falsworth’s voice snapped him back, and he jerked his eyes up to meet his. “You know Barnes?”

“Since we were kids.”

“I’m sorry. He was a good guy—strong. Kept going for days before he finally couldn’t keep it up anymore.” To his credit, Falsworth seemed genuinely saddened, but in the way all soldiers Steve had met did: tucked somewhere behind their eyes, there but not at the expense of moving forward every day.

Of course, Bucky fought. He never did like a fight, but he was good at them—and that’s when Steve decided. “How do I get to the infirmary from here.”

Dernier huffed a laugh and shared another glance with his buddy. “I’m sorry, but—”

“You said no one has ever come back before, soldier. I’m telling you that if anybody could, it’s James Buchanan Barnes.” Steve continued on despite the blank stares he was receiving from both Falsworth and Dernier. “So just tell me how to get to the infirmary, and then I’ll get all of you out of here.”

Dernier huffed an incredulous laugh, “How?”

Steve just flashed a smile in his direction. “I told you, I’ve got a plan. But you gotta tell me where the infirmary is before I can get it rolling.”

Falsworth sighed and rubbed a hand over his face before his eyes began boring into Steve’s with an intensity usually reserved for admirals and the hardened little nuns back in Brooklyn. “If we tell you where to go, you can get us out of here? Even if something happens to you while you’re off looking for a dead man?”

“That’s kinda the plan. Who’s gonna notice a couple of soldiers turning loose when there’s a life-size American flag running around throwing punches.” 

Steve hoped the relief didn’t show in his eyes when Falsworth finally cracked a smile. “I can see why Barnes likes you. The infirmary is on the other end of the compound, past the factory in the middle. Little white building, feels like hell just staring at the doors.” Steve nodded in thanks and let Falsworth continue, his body suddenly too tense with anticipation to allow him another moment of playing his part as Captain America. “So it sounds like you plan on distracting most everyone on your little trip across the compound. Mind telling us what we’re supposed to be doing?”

“Just wait for my distraction to kick in, then get everyone out. You can use the front doors, just be careful. If any guards stay they’ll be drunk as sin and shouldn’t give you too much trouble. Go around the back, avoid the factory, there’s a side exit not too far from here.” 

“You expect four hundred guys to just...walk out of here?” Dernier was, understandably, confused, but Steve pressed on.

“I swear,” he hoped, “it’ll be the easiest thing you ever did. Just wait for the distraction.” Steve had already turned away and was moving back towards the door, realizing that he didn’t want to be caught leaving once the Alpha shift finally got around to doing their job.

“Wait, what distraction are we waiting for?” 

“Trust me, you’ll know.” Steve glanced over his shoulder and mouthed ‘boom’ before reaching for the door. 

It seemed to take no time at all to slip out of the barracks and make his way unseen to the factory, at which point he paused and vaguely remembered promising a distraction. He knew if he were to just round the corner of the factory, he would see the white walls of the infirmary that Falsworth described. He also knew that as much as he would set the whole wide world to burn for just a chance that he could see Buck again, he couldn’t leave the four hundred men he had seen and spoken to to rot. With a silent prayer that wherever Buck was ( _if_ , whispered some traitorous little voice in the back of his head, _i_ _f_ he was), he could hold on for another half hour.

Getting into the factory was as easy as getting to it had been. Steve was beginning to think this was too easy, that there was some other divine shoe waiting to drop down and knock him clean out, but he reasoned that meant he just had to move that much quicker. The place was deserted at night, that much was clear. Whoever was running it must be pretty sure of their security to leave what looked like a pretty complex spread of machines out in the open. The thought of a single, unarmed man in a red, white, and blue jumpsuit running around some strange Nazi war camp in the dead of night would’ve made him laugh if only he weren’t that idiot in a jumpsuit. High security indeed—it took him ten whole minutes rifling through the string of offices at the front of the factory to find a set of matches and fifteen more to find a pack of cigarettes. Staring out at the poorly lit working floor, with grime and what he hoped were scraps of cloth and paper littering the floor, Steve hoped that these guys were too rough-and-tough to have any kind of fire safety installed. 

He started at the front of the factory and walked as straight down the middle as he could, swiping a match until it caught and tossing it into one of the walls. Every couple of matches, he would light a cigarette first and send the two flying in opposite directions. By the time he got down to the end of the machines, he looked back and saw small lines of flickering flames running along the factory floor, crawling up the blessed wooden posts along the walls, licking at the roof. He only spared a few more minutes to make sure it grew, just enough that he was certain it wasn’t going out any time soon. The distant shouts of “Fire!” as he slipped out the back end of the factory were all it took to bring a smile to his face.

That is, until he finally caught sight of what he instinctively knew to be the infirmary. Falsworth was right. Just looking at it felt like hell, but he couldn’t stand here staring long. When he reached out and pushed open the doors, the first thing he noticed was the long expanse of hallway, and the way his world narrowed down to the door all the way at the end. Somehow he just knew, call it the Holy Spirit, but he just knew Bucky would be behind that door or nowhere. The next thing he noticed were the guards.

Nine pairs of eyes locked onto Steve all at once, and the long and ill-lit hallway fell so silent that you could hear the other shoe hitting the floor. 

“This is...not optimal.” Steve shifted his shield onto his left arm, blocking the place where Buck’s jacket was slung over his shoulder, and flashed what could have been either a winning smile or a grotesque baring of teeth before continuing, “I don’t suppose any of you might be having a profound change of heart here?”

The nine heavily set and, more alarmingly, heavily armed guards started to inch their way towards him. “How the hell did you get in here?”

Steve shrugged. “Smarts, determination, dumb luck. Take your pick.”

The man closest to Steve grinned. “Dumb, but definitely not lucky, _Captain._ ”

Inwardly Steve had to sigh—of course they knew about him here, too. “The luck was for you guys, because you’re gonna need it.”

There were a few snickers that echoed outrageously in the tunneled space, and the same soldier stepped within arm’s reach with a call of, “What are you going to do, make us buy war bonds?”

Eight matching grins fell just a touch as Steve suddenly reached out and swung, his fist connecting soundly with the first soldier’s jaw and sending him flying. “Huh,” Steve examined his fist as if confused by its actions. “Gotta say, that’s much more satisfying than throwing ninety pounds into a drunken punch in some back alley. Now, anyone wanna tell me what’s behind that door?”

The men raised their weapons in almost perfect unison, confident that a few seconds were all it would take to get this annoyance out of the way. In any other situation it might have been enough, but as it was Steve couldn’t stop until he reached the door. The force that seemed to be calling out to him, telling him that Buck was being held somewhere behind _that door_ , had only grown, and was still growing, to the point that Steve belatedly realized he was once again caught up in Bucky’s orbit.

It had been forever since he had last heard from Bucky, longer since he had been able to feel this pull. The relief at the way the next two soldiers fell from the wide swing of his shield couldn’t compare to the relief of taking two more strides towards the door, feeling a rush of satisfaction at the small release of the tension that had been building since the day Buck got drafted. Steve had been so angry that day, and every day after it, and he thought he had just been raging at the unfairness of it all. And he was, of course he was, and even months of going home to an empty apartment where there should have been more couldn’t have convinced him that he was upset for any other reason. 

Five tours in five cities were all it had taken to become aware of what it was, Steve realized. He hadn’t put a name to it—couldn’t have if he wanted to, at that point. He just didn’t have the words, but he knew, as sure as he knew that next time he needed a gun if he was going to have to resort to throwing a man into two others like a grotesque game of bowling. He knew he had gotten closer to Buck than he was comfortable thinking about, but that he couldn’t begin to think of going without it.

In four different letters he had hinted at it, hoping that maybe Buck would be the one to put the pieces together and could just come out and tell him that he felt it too, or at the very least, tell him it was okay. He still wasn’t sure whether or not Bucky had picked up on what he was saying, but he still couldn’t help but feel like he had seen the echoes of his own realizations in Buck’s letters, like ripples in a pond. He swore to God as he brought his shield down over another soldier’s head that if Bucky was behind that door, he would tell him everything. No more Steve Rogers, artist for Captain America, no more Steve Rogers, ascetic little punk. All the lies would stop, had to stop, because Steve had already taken too long to realize something.

Three somethings, actually. First, Bucky alive and hating his guts was better than Bucky dead. Second, even if he hated Steve’s guts, Bucky wouldn’t do anything to put Steve in danger. And third, Steve didn’t want to be anywhere other than here, caught in Bucky’s orbit. He would gladly spend the rest of his life there, if only God would let him, because he loved Bucky Barnes. Not as a friend, not even as a brother. Hell, here he was kneeing a man where the sun don’t shine and slamming the butt of his own rifle into his head and the head of the final soldier standing just to get to that damn door. He’d like to say he would’ve done the same for anybody, but he didn’t know. No, he loved Bucky in a different way, he’d come to terms with that. Weeks of worrying his mother’s rosary beads and imagining the hellfire in Buck’s eyes when he inevitably found out had done nothing to quell the slew of realizations Steve had been having. 

Two men living together at their age—hell, it had been enough to ruin better men in the past. How they got this lucky, he didn’t care to know. He still remembered going to the MET for the first time on his seventeenth birthday, how Bucky had worked his hands to the bone for weeks and come home late and driven Steve crazy mad, only to come home one morning with the tickets in hand and a firm command to _put on your jacket, punk, and come on._ He hadn’t ever seen so many pictures in one place, but all day he kept dragging Bucky back to the same one: _Achilles and the Shade of Patroclus_ . It had been little more than a sketch, simple graphite lines barely stroking the page, and Bucky hadn’t seemed to understand what about it had Steve so awed. To be honest, neither did Steve. He hadn’t heard the names beyond the barest mentions, and it was no amazing work of art. There was just something so pained in the man’s face, so much longing in his outstretched arms, and the other looked so sorry that he couldn’t reach down to grasp and be grasped in kind. He even remembered the inscription: _He said, and with his longing arms essay'd/ In vain to grasp visionary shade._ After they had finally left the museum that day, they had been cornered in an alley by two grown men who laughed and called them fairies. That was the first time Steve remembered Buck taking any pleasure in throwing a punch. 

One more enemy between Steve and his goal, but mastering this one wasn’t as easy as throwing a punch. Steve stood staring at that door like it was going to disappear, or maybe like he was going to open it and be met with nothing more than a brick wall on the other end. Despite the feeling his body was getting pulled closer to the door with every moment of hesitation, Steve suddenly had half a mind to turn and run tail back to where the other men were certainly escaping by now, or to sit here and stand with his hand outreached for the handle of the door (and when had that happened?) for forever. And one day, he’d have been standing there so long that he’d turned to stone, and people would come to see the place where Captain America was forever reaching for something he couldn’t have, and when they walked through the doors, they would either see Bucky Barnes there reaching back or they wouldn’t. 

It was a tempting thought, but Bucky was no shade. Not yet. Steve still had the chance to reach out and grasp his arm, to touch his face, and he couldn’t let that slip through his fingers. 

The moment when the door creaked open was the longest of his life, and the only sound he could hear was the pounding of his heart from the tips of his toes to the top of his head. Until suddenly, he heard something else. The rattling breathing was shocking in that those sounds usually came from Steve, but today they were coming from the dark shape laid out on the table in the middle of the room. Steve took a tentative step closer. “Bucky? Buck, is that you? Are you...are you alright?”

“...Steve?”

If Steve’s world had slowed down, the sound of that voice—rough from disuse but still so sweet to Steve—had just snapped it into acceleration. The horrific array of tubes, machines, and tools blurred as Steve was propelled to the long table in the middle of the room where his heart was laid out, battered and bruised and _alive_ goddammit, so quickly and inexorably that he knew that every aimless second of the last year had been pulling him along to this single moment. It was ineffable, the moment he leaned over the table and laid his hand on the too-sharp cheekbone that was warm and just a little rough with stubble, the moment when he stroked his thumb along the line of the jaw and was sure the hazy relief in those eyes was mirrored in his own. He let out a breath that felt years overdue and smiled.

“Bucky.”

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brought to you by "Achilles and the Shade of Patroclus," a sketch created in 1793 by one John Flaxman. Available to view at the following link: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/341681?searchField=All&sortBy=Relevance&ao=on&ft=patroclus&offset=0&rpp=20&pos=5 
> 
> -C.B.


	19. Salvation

“I thought you were dead.” The moment the words left his mouth, Steve realized just how true they were. 

All of the varied and horrifying situations he had expected when he opened that door melted blessedly away when Bucky tilted his head into Steve’s hand just a fraction. Bound and bruised was the least he had been worried about—and at least one of those he could fix. Steve watched a smile pull at one corner of Buck’s mouth as he was released from his bonds, before his brow fell into a furrowed confusion. “...I thought you were smaller?”

The laugh that bubbled up in Steve’s throat and poured out of his mouth felt warm and heady, more intoxicating than the first sip of champagne. It had the same effect too, and Steve couldn’t keep his one hand from sliding up and through Bucky’s hair—greasy, but _soft_ , he’d have to remember how soft it was—nor his other from gripping his very solid and very much there shoulder. “I think I win here. Dead is worse, Buck. I was so worried.”

The furrow in Bucky’s brow hadn’t smoothed, but Steve couldn’t bring himself to get all ruffled at the interrogation and lecturing that look was bound to bring. “Well,” Bucky’s eyes slipped away, and they seemed to dart around the room too quickly to really be taking anything in. “I’m here, ain’t I?” 

Bucky’s eyes had locked solidly back onto Steve, who quickly stripped his face of any concern that had been spurred by the genuine question in Buck’s tone. Instead, he looked at those brown eyes until he smiled again. “Barely, but you are. Thank God for that.”

He started to tug at Bucky’s shoulder in an effort to get him sitting up, which wasn’t too difficult seeing how as soon as Steve took his hand away from Buck’s head he had two hands almost desperately clasping at his own arms. He still hadn’t released Buck’s gaze, which had grown more wild with what Steve could only assume was the ridiculous fear that he was going to disappear if he let go. “What happened to you, Steve?”

Now that was more like the Bucky that Steve expected. “Not sure you’d believe me if I told you.” He reached out and tugged on Buck’s legs until he got him to swing them off the side of the table, keeping a hand behind his back to steady him through the movement. “And besides, we gotta get you off of this table.”

“This...what?” Bucky glanced down at where his legs dangled from the metal slab and his eyes widened in surprise. “Okay...I don’t…”

“Easy Buck,” Steve threaded an arm under one of Bucky’s shoulders and started to tug him onto his feet. “Just, up...yeah.” The amount that Bucky’s legs wobbled was alarming, and Steve was certain if he hadn’t been pulling all his weight onto himself that Bucky would have fallen flat. This was going to be more difficult than he thought. “There you go. Come on, we don’t have a lot of time.”

“...’kay.”

If anyone ever asked, if they ended up making it out for anyone _to_ ask, Steve would swear up and down that James Buchanan Barnes walked out of that infirmary on his own two feet, smirking and giving Steve hell for taking so long. As it was, the only two feet on the ground may as well have been Steve’s, because every jerky movement of Bucky’s legs—despite taking a seemingly huge amount of concentration—yielded nothing more than a violent buckling of his knees. Steve let him struggle for all of five painfully long paces before he let his hand slip down around Buck’s waist to give him better leverage so he could lift the man half off the ground as they walked. If it hadn’t been clear before, it was clear now that Bucky was in no state to be making a secret getaway from the middle of a Nazi prison camp, but there wasn’t anything to be done but get him out as quickly as possible. He couldn’t even take the time to relish the press of Bucky’s (shockingly cold—had he always run that cold?) side into his own, a sensation he had unfortunately failed to give much thought to even in the throes of his recent self-realizations. There would be time for all that later. There would have to be.

With Steve practically carrying him out the door and through the long hallway that led into the infirmary, Bucky apparently had enough energy free to examine their surroundings, namely the nine soldiers slumped across their path in varying degrees of disarray. “What happened here?” 

The edge of accusation in his tone was familiar, at least. Steve could deal with that. “Oh, well.” He lifted Bucky bodily over two soldiers piled in a heap. “I may’ve gotten in a fight.” The sight of the bloody gash on one soldier’s head, no doubt a result of an unfortunate meeting with the edge of Steve’s shield, made him flinch. “No one’s real hurt though, I think.” He hoped. If he was going to meet his maker a lying sinner already, he didn’t want murder on his plate, too.

“God, you’re such a punk.” The well-rehearsed declaration seemed to give Buck the energy to begin putting weight on his own feet, though his relationship with gravity still felt tenuous from Steve’s position at his side. “Just like always.”

“Yeah, like always.” Steve pulled them both to a stop in front of the doors at the end of the hallway and pulled the brown jacket from where it was slung over his shoulder, the chill of Bucky’s form having reminded him too closely of intangible shades and reaching arms. “Listen, I want you to put this on, okay?” When Bucky sat looking blankly between the jacket and Steve’s face, he continued. “You just, you need...something.” Something—why couldn’t he have picked up some of that self-assured mothering of Bucky’s he had always griped about?

“Is this…” Bucky ran a shaking hand along the sleeve of the jacket and looked back up at Steve, eyes shuttered and distrusting in a way that very honestly wrenched Steve’s heart. “This isn’t real. Is it?”

Steve resisted the urge to press his hand to Bucky’s cheek again, and just did his best to fix his Captain America, trust-me-I’m-an-American smile on his face. “It’s real Buck, I swear.” He took Bucky’s intense focus on the place where his smile was splitting his face as a chance to start stuffing his left arm through a sleeve. “You just told me to take care of it, and here it is, good as new, and me too. Give me your other arm, okay?” It was like dressing a babe—not that Steve had any expertise in the area, but the complete lack of cooperation on Bucky’s part made a three-second endeavor the most frustrating minute of his life.

He was glad for the effort, though, when he opened the doors to the infirmary and a blast of cold air sent Buck into immediate shivers. As much as he hated it, if this was what Buck had gone through every time he had begged Steve to just wear a _damn_ jacket, every time he had given up telling and just manhandled Steve into it, then Steve might have to start wearing jackets even though he didn’t need them much anymore. Just to give Bucky some peace of mind. 

The first step out of the infirmary seemed to lift whatever fog had claimed Bucky, if only a fraction, because the next look he gave Steve was full of something that at least approximated real recognition. “You really came looking for me.”

Steve was intent on pulling them quickly away from the infirmary, but the note of disbelief in that statement couldn’t be allowed to stand unchallenged. “‘Course I did. You think I was lying when I said I’d come over here and drag you back home?” Steve couldn’t let out all the words he wanted to, especially not while Bucky was so compromised, but he didn’t stop himself from pouring all that sincerity into his voice. “And after all this time. Thought you knew me better, jerk.”

His effort at sincerity didn’t land quite like he wanted it too, because Bucky wouldn’t stop glancing up at his face with an expression that said he expected him to disappear any second. “Just...never thought I’d see you again.”

Steve could almost feel his heart drop down into his feet before bouncing back and rattling around in his chest cavity. He suddenly wished that Buck were all there, if only so he could shake his shoulders and ask him if he knew what he meant when he said ‘til the end of the line, because Steve was damn sure it didn’t mean giving up. But they were still here, creeping away from the infirmary, Steve completely wired and hellbent on getting Bucky _out_ and Buck just kind of hanging off his shoulder and sloughing along without seeming to be aware he was doing it. Steve felt a quick pang of guilt for the irritation that ran through his mind at Bucky’s lack of awareness of what a horrible thought he’d just voiced—nevermind that he had certainly been in dire straits before Steve showed up, just how dire did it have to be for him to have completely given up on everything, and Steve with it? 

He pulled Bucky in a little tighter, not that he was in any position to notice the change. For months Steve had been trying to come to terms with all of the changes to his person and his life, and his efforts had culminated in the attempt to essentially stitch together something new and shiny out of all the older parts of himself, to try and fill out the suit and the mask and the Captain America title. He had quickly realized that the parts of himself he was willing to salvage for this new venture weren’t quite enough to build Captain America, that it would take more than righteous anger and determination and homegrown American stubbornness. He had needed charm, and a softer kind of warmth than he had ever possessed.

He had needed Bucky. Even when he was on another continent, Steve had been unable to escape the fact that Buck rounded him out in ways that he had never even realized, and that he had been doing it since the day they met. With Buck gone, he had to try rounding that out himself. It still never felt quite perfect, but the big grins and warm handshakes and smooth conversation were almost a second skin now, the increasing popularity of the tour could attest to that. If it weren’t ridiculous, he’d say it felt almost like having a part of Bucky with him on that stage.

Now, trying to tug Buck forward from where he had suddenly stopped and was staring into the distance, Steve fervently wished he had tried to pick up more important things than charming folks from Bucky. All those years Buck had spent getting Steve out of trouble, finishing his fights and dealing with all the aftermath, whether it was bruised ribs or raw feelings, and he had never seemed half as panicked or close to being sick as Steve felt right now. He suddenly found himself asking how he did it, why he did it, knowing that he was just going to get up the next day and find another pile of shit for him to shovel—

“I know that man.” Bucky was staring at the same spot in the distance with an intensity that seemed incongruous with his current state.

Steve, jarred from his train of thought, followed Bucky’s gaze to a darkened set of stairs. A darkened set of very empty stairs. “...What man, Buck?”

“The…” Buck ripped himself away from Steve’s side with startling rapidity and took a single faltering step toward the stairwell. “He was just there—”

“Okay.” Steve scanned their surroundings quickly, before tracking his eyes slowly over what was visible of the stairs one more time. “That’s alright, Buck. He ain’t there anymore. Let’s just get you outta here, okay? If we head over this way, we oughta hit one of the gates soon.” Steve turned and made to continue on in the direction they had been walking, but Bucky stood stock-still, eyes never leaving the stairs for a moment. “Come on, what’re you waiting for?”

“Coulda sworn…” Bucky finally ripped his eyes away from the stairs and stared directly at Steve. “He’s the one that did it.”

Steve’s body turned of its own accord, reaching out to Bucky at the vague mention of what he had gone through. “Did what, Buck? What the hell happened here?”

Bucky reached out in turn and grasped Steve’s arms, face briefly hidden by the downward tilt of his head and the shaggy locks falling to hide whatever emotion was flashing under the surface. When he finally lifted his head, it was to fix Steve with a look so desperate that he already knew he wouldn’t allow himself to brush this off as a fever-induced vision. “He made me...said he was gonna make me a soldier. That’s why he did it.”

“What? What did he do to you?” Bucky proffered no response, but his eyes kept pleading with Steve to do something. “Does he know you, Buck?” Steve tried to make his voice gentler, to keep the growing dread from bleeding in. “Does he know who you are?”

Buck started shaking his head from side to side. “Bad. It was real bad.” When he froze, his hands tensed around Steve’s arms to a degree that was almost painful. “I told him...I didn’t give him anything, Steve, I swear, but I gave him my name, my rank, number...he knows my name…” By that point there was an edge of panic coloring Bucky’s words, a slight but constant shudder running through his arms. “He knows my name.”

“Okay.” Shit. “Okay. That’s alright.” Or it would be, if Steve could just find the man that had seen Sergeant Barnes of the 107th regiment being specially rescued by _Captain Fucking America_. “You did good, Buck. Just what you were supposed to do. We just gotta go…” See if this was a figment of your very impaired imagination? Get rid of the guy for good so he can’t get to you again? “...we gotta go pay him a little visit, okay? Real quick. Won’t take long at all. That sound okay?”

“I—yeah. I think.” He tilted his head and Steve could see himself reflected in his eyes, blessedly devoid of that previous panic. “You’re coming with?”

“Course, buddy.” Steve smiled and began slowly extracting his arms from Bucky’s bruising grip. “Not leaving you alone anytime soon. Where’d you say you saw him?”

“He was—” if they got out of here in one piece, Steve was going to have to sketch the confusion currently rippling over Bucky’s features. “He was here, and then he was, by that door, I think? By the...stairs?”

“That’s good, that’s real good.” He threaded his arm under one of Bucky’s shoulders again. “Let’s go over this way—” Buck suddenly tried to pull them both in the opposite direction, and Steve used the least amount of force he could to correct their course and bring them both closer to the stairwell. “Over, over here. Good. Come on, looks like stairs. You up for stairs?”

The way Buck tripped over one of his own feet the second Steve released him and ended up whiteknuckling the railing answered his question before the words even left Bucky’s mouth. “Dunno if I can make it, Steve...you gotta—”  
“I can help,” He moved back to his previous position, supporting Buck with one arm wrapped around his waist, and moved them in front of the first step. “Here, I’ll help you. It’s just left, right—careful—there you go. Left, right, just like when you taught me to waltz.” Steve kept their pace slow, and didn’t bother trying to stem his rambling, just sent up a silent prayer that he was coming off as ‘comforting’ rather than ‘about to hyperventilate worse than he did last winter.’ “You remember when you taught me that Buck? Left, right, left, right…”

“Ha.” Steve felt the short exhale of breath almost against his neck. “Think you needed my help more than I need yours.”

The accusation brought a genuine smile to Steve’s face. “My dancing was that bad, huh?”

“Think you spent more time on your ass than you did on your feet.” The point lost some of its weight when Bucky’s foot caught on the lip of the next step, and Steve had to pause to steady him before pulling them forward even more quickly than before. 

“Yeah, well, we’re gonna try not to let you end up that way. You gotta show me you can do it though, left, right, just like that day, huh? What was it we were listening to, anyway?”

“I don’t...god, the floor keeps moving,” Bucky groaned, “I can’t, Steve—!”

“No, you can—come on!” He was almost carrying him bridal style now, but was painfully aware of how much that limited his ability to defend against a potential attack. “We just gotta talk to this guy, and then I swear to God I’ll carry you the rest of the way back to camp if I have to. You just gotta make it up and I’ll get you down, okay?”

“Ugh.” Bucky got his own legs back under himself and Steve breathed a silent sigh of relief. “Was I ever this pushy with you?”

“All the time,” Steve laughed, “Kicked my ass every other day, you jerk. Needed it though, just like now. You just need a little help, that’s all. But we’ve got this, we’re good.” Steve wondered if the serum had also enhanced his ability to lie to himself.

“Is that…” Bucky once again stopped dead in his tracks on the landing of the stairs, “It’s him. I know it. It’s gotta be.”

Steve was about to be cross with the Erskine’s memory, frustrated at the thought that this was the second time Bucky, half-dead and definitely currently out of his head, was seeing something that Steve with all his serum-finished senses couldn’t seem to hone in on. 

“Captain America,” The booming voice, altogether too cheerful for Steve’s tastes, echoed from the parallel landing on the other side of the space, connected to their place on the stairs by a narrow metal walkway. “I’m such a fan of your films.” The smile on the face emerging from the shadows by the elevator sent a shiver down Steve’s spine; the edges were pulled too taut, and the whole expression looked as if it had been cut and pasted onto a face-like canvas.

Steve chose to ignore what he was sure was a jibe in favor of leaning into Bucky’s space to whisper, “This your guy?”

“No. He was small. Said he was...a doctor?” Buck swayed as he spoke, and Steve forced him to lean heavily on the single railing instead of letting him take his chances with the drop into the chasm around the stairs. 

“Where’s the doctor?” Steve took a step onto the connecting walkway, straightening his back as much as he could. “I’m guessing he’s the one in charge, if you’ve got nothing more important to do than watch my films all day.”

When the man finally deigned to step out of the shadows and stalk forward on the narrow walkway, Steve only had eyes for him. He wasn’t the doctor, wasn’t the one who had done...whatever he did to Bucky, but he looked spitting mad and Steve was sure if he landed his fist just right he could break his nose in one hit and that was enough for him at the moment. 

“It would seem Dr. Erskine’s procedure enhanced your sense of self-importance in addition to your physical form.” Then again, why only go for the nose? A moving target was always harder to hit, but if this guy was so insistent on bringing his jaw within Steve’s reach, well. Steve would hate to look a gift horse in the mouth. “You would do well to watch your mouth, Captain.”

With the sneered title, the man had finally crossed into what Steve considered fair territory. The only satisfaction greater than the sickening crunch of his knuckles slamming into the man’s jaw was the shocked look that followed. “And you would do well to watch yours, sir.”

Some of the satisfaction inevitably dissipated when Steve heard Bucky draw in a brief but pained gasp behind him, somehow audible even over the sounds of sirens from some distant part of the complex. Steve spared a thought for Dernier and Falsworth, but his attention was quickly redirected to an incongruously soft voice coming not from the man in front of him on the walkway, but from the shadowed corner of landing by the elevator.

“Ah, Sergeant Barnes. This is a surprise, to say the least.”

The vague interest lacing the smaller man’s statement seemed to cast a chill over the room, and Steve belatedly realized that the metallic clang he registered was actually Bucky, who had stumbled backwards and was teetering dangerously close to the single unhelpful railing on the back end of the landing. 

“You.” Steve took a step forward, certain that whatever sway this little man held would be enough to keep the larger one well on his end of the walkway. “You’re the doctor.” When the man’s beady eyes locked onto his, Steve didn’t know whether to be grateful his attention was no longer lingering on Buck or fearful of what depths he was now staring into. He chose to be grateful. “What did you do? I swear to God I’ll, I’ll—”

“No need for threats, Captain.” Two hands were held palms up in what Steve supposed should have been a placating gesture. “I spent some quality time—ah, _working_ with Sergeant Barnes. He has proven to be a very _interesting_ companion.”

“Don’t give me that shit, _doctor_. He’s no companion of yours.” Steve had reached the middle of the walkway, but his next step forward was matched the larger man who, Steve noted, didn’t seem to be bleeding or even bruising. He forced himself to widen his stance and level his most unimpressed gaze at the doctor. “Now if you tell your guy to back off then I might not rip you apart, but I gotta tell you doc, I’m a little at the end of my rope here and something’s gotta give.”

A sprig of triumph rose in Steve when he saw the flicker of hesitation in the doctor’s eyes, but once again his own attention was captured by a breathy and panicked sound from the landing behind him. “...Steve? I’m gonna-”

The distress in that voice was all it took to send Steve spinning around, and the sight of Bucky barely hanging to the sparse railing sent him rushing back without a thought for the two bastards who merely shared a look and started making their way to the elevator in his distraction. 

“Shit, shit, you can’t!” Steve grabbed Bucky’s arm and yanked him away from the edge. “Dammit Bucky, you just gotta, come on!”

The best Steve could do was lower Buck to the ground in the middle of the platform, where the worst he could do was try to roll his way to the edge. The image brought to mind the earlier comparison to dressing a baby, and Steve was suddenly seized by the inappropriate desire to start giggling. A booming laugh did begin to echo around the chamber, but it wasn’t Steve’s. 

He whipped his head around and was met with the sight of the two men standing, matching expressions of pleasure, in the elevator on the other side of the landing. “I believe,” the doctor began in his deceptively gentle voice, “I’ll be seeing you, Sergeant Barnes. We have some...unfinished business to attend to.”

He wouldn’t ever be able to tell you how, but Steve found himself staring blankly at a large dent in the silver elevator doors right where he could have sworn the doctor’s head was. He vaguely took in the burn in his right arm and the fact that he couldn’t seem to place his shield. He was unaware how long he had been standing there like that, but apparently it had been enough time for Buck to drag himself shakily onto his feet and fist his fingers in Steve’s sleeve. “...Stevie?”

The moniker pricked uncomfortably behind his eyes, but was enough of an incentive for Steve to jolt into motion, clapping Bucky lightly on the shoulder and pulling him back towards the stairs. “Okay, time to go. Now.”

Bucky struggled against Steve’s hold, trying to twist his head back in the direction of the elevator. “He’s...he's gone. I’m not gonna...he’s gone?”

“He can’t get to you Buck, I promise. Ain’t nothin bad gonna happen to you while I’m here. You believe me, don’t you?” The words were accompanied by a gentle squeeze where Steve was still gripping Bucky’s upper arm.

“Let’s go.” Bucky avoided meeting Steve’s eyes as he took it upon himself to start stumbling down the stairs, but Steve decided to revisit it later, when Buck could be proud of the fact that he was finally learning to pick his battles. 

“Good, good. We got up, now we’re getting down. That should be the easy part, yeah? Let’s see if we can’t take it a little quicker—you think you can handle a little quickstep Buck? Always been one of your favorites.”

“Can handle it better’n you, at least.”  
“Ain’t that the truth. Maybe I just need to find me a better teacher.”

“Better partner, more like.”

Steve glanced sideways at Bucky, who was now tripping down the stairs with a level of control that was impossible right when he had slid off that table. Whatever they had him on, it was wearing off some, though he wasn’t lucid by any means. “Nah, I don’t think there’s a better partner out there. Not for me, at least.” He tugged Bucky along, relieved when he saw another narrow walkway leading to what he hopefully remembered correctly as being the ground floor door.

All his genuine cheer at Buck’s minor improvements shattered, along with seemingly half the supports in their immediate vicinity, as the building shook with a resounding bang. “That’s...that’s bad, right?” Buck asked from where he and Steve were half-crouched on the landing. 

Steve glanced out at the walkway, which had been reduced to a straining narrow beam, and then glanced to the stairs, where the routes to other floors were now either blocked or near decimated. “Yes—” He glanced at Bucky’s face, which was carefully blank, and his eyes, which betrayed his panic. “No—just give, gimme a minute. I’ve got a plan.”

Looking out at that rickety beam, looking like it’d snap in half if he just tapped it with his foot, Steve knew there were only a few ways this could go. They could go over together—or at least, they could step onto it together and end up falling together, too. No two ways about that, it wasn’t going to hold them both. If Steve was being honest with himself, it probably wasn’t even going to hold him. And if he went down and took the damn thing with him, where would Bucky be then? Alone and waiting for something, the nature of which Steve didn’t even want to consider. And if he sent Bucky over first, maybe he fell. He wasn’t in a good way, so it was a real chance. Maybe he fell. Maybe the beam broke. Okay, so Steve would fall, too. But maybe he made it, and then if Steve could only convince him to get out, he could be alright. Bucky could get out, maybe Dernier and Falsworth would find him or maybe he’d make it on his own, but he could get back to the camp and go back to New York and the apartment and he could have a life. Bucky could get out, and Steve would be here, but he could live with that—it wouldn’t be a hard road, or a long one judging by the way the staircase had started swaying noticeably side to side. 

“Okay, look.” Steve turned to Buck and smiled, wishing he could take a minute to sketch his eyes, the curve of his cheek, the twist of his lips, but knowing it would be useless, anyways. “I need you to walk over, one little step at a time, okay? You do that for me Bucky?”

“What? You’re kidding. I can’t—what about you?”

“I ain’t kidding. I told you, I won’t let anything happen to you. I’ll be right behind you, I swear.”

The lie dripped from his mouth like honey and vinegar, and the sweet taste of Bucky maybe, potentially, alive and well meant Steve couldn’t even be bothered by the vinegar. It was the easiest tale he had told all year, and when Buck reached for Steve’s hand—not his arm, but his honest-to-God hand—the lies just kept coming, sin or not.

“Promise, Steve. Promise you’re coming after me.”  
Steve squeezed his hand gently, wanting to take his time but knowing he needed to hurry if he wanted that last bittersweet drop before he went to his maker. “Promise. Now get up—there you go. Real slow, real careful, remember.”

While Bucky was slipping and stumbling over the beam, Steve was bargaining with what few chips he had left, every step a prayer. Buck wobbled a little, _he’s already walked through the valley of the shadow of death ten times over._ His left foot slipped, _he doesn’t need more pain, doesn’t deserve it._ Another explosion sounded from somewhere deep below, _deliver him, don’t let him be taken away to death._ The shaking increased and Buck stumbled a few steps forward, _God, take whatever you want, just not him. You can’t._ Buck slipped and caught himself on his hands and knees. “I’m not gonna make it.”

_You can’t._ “Yes, you are. You’ve gotta—who the hell am I supposed to dance with if you don’t, huh? I’ve gotta take you to the Grand Canyon, too. Just get up, goddammit Buck, get up!”

He crawled forward a few more feet, but the shaking was increasing. Steve swore he could almost see the beam buckling in slow motion. “I’m sorry Steve, I—”

_Don’t take him, staggering his way to slaughter—be merciful._ Steve forced himself to watch as the beam began to bend from the middle, Bucky scrambling to his feet, his mind nothing more than an anguished stream of _be merciful, be merciful, if not to me then to him—if not to him then to me_ —and then Bucly jumped. It was less of a jump and more of a final desperate lunge, but either way, Bucky pushed himself off of the now falling beam with a strength that Steve was damn certain he didn’t actually possess at that moment. His hands curled around the railing of the other landing, and the same strength that seemed to have lifted him from the beam now propelled him over the railing. The second Bucky’s feet touched the platform it was like the strings had been cut, and Steve watched him slump to his knees and run a hand over his face in distress. The sigh that left Steve’s mouth was laced with a sense of peace, and he had been certain that this meant Bucky’s life was saved.

Until Buck had regained enough sense to look across the now gaping, empty chasm in between his platform and the one where Steve still stood, a world behind him. The betrayal that carved into Bucky’s features as he pulled himself up to lean heavily against the railing unsettled Steve, reminding him too much of the look that must have graced his own face the day Buck had been drafted. 

The day Steve had worn that face was the first day he had gone straight to the Army Recruiter’s office. When they rejected him, he had started a fight in the alley behind their apartment building that had left him with a bruised rib and black eye, and it all started with him wearing that look. Now that look was on Bucky’s face, and Steve didn’t want to know what he was going to do. 

“Just, go! Get out of here!”

“No!” Bucky’s voice ripped through Steve, leaving him breathless in an instant. “Not without you!”

Steve had always thought that his eventual deliverance would involve a bunch of ethereal white lights, enveloping him and warming him through and through in a way that was impossible to imagine just a short year ago. It turned out to involve a pair of weary and wild eyes, closer in color to a steaming cup of coffee than heavenly lights, and the anguished twist in a pair of bright and bruised lips—stained scarlet, Steve thought, as if laid over with a rough and bloodied cloth. The tortured curve of that mouth spoke to Steve, told him that his job wasn’t finished yet and he had been a _punk_ to think otherwise. The urgency in those eyes compelled him to continue, called out to him that with Bucky he would once again find what he needed. Steve knew what he was being offered, in a word. 

Salvation.

Bucky had trusted in Steve, and made it through. Now it was Steve’s turn for a leap of faith. He refused to think as he backed up as far as he could on the landing and instead chose to focus on those eyes, looking at him like the moon would never again be hung up at night without Steve around. He barely felt the tensing of his muscles as he pressed his weight down into the edge of the platform, nor the immense release of energy as he pushed himself away and the air whipping through his hair as he flew. What he did feel was the way his hands scrambled for purchase when he slammed against the opposite landing, and two warm hands twisting into his uniform to frantically help pull him up onto steadier ground. 

He waited until he had been tugged to standing and could once again claim Bucky’s gaze before he broke out into a weary smile. “See? I told you I’d be right behind you.”

Bucky, hands still wound tightly into Steve’s uniform, gave him as intimidating a shake as he was capable of. “God, you’re such a punk.”

“I know.” Steve reached out and clasped Bucky’s upper arms in kind. He maintained that furious gaze for a moment, before he had to slip his arms further and draw Bucky’s shaky form into his chest. When Buck finally released his grip in favor of circling his own arms around Steve’s back, Steve allowed himself to drop his head into Buck’s neck, where he imagined he could feel the beat of Bucky’s heart radiating outwards to his own. “You jerk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is brought to you by the Quickstep—a fast-paced dance, perfect for your average getaway.
> 
> -C.B.


	20. Storming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for strong language in this chapter!

In the wake of the explosion and the fire and every unspeakable thing that came before, Bucky had a hard time stitching reality back together. He’d gotten out - he’d thought he was going to die but he’d gotten out - and now he felt wrong and out-of-place somehow, like he belonged more with the shadows that only he could see than he did with the other men, or with the stranger that was somehow here wearing Steve’s face.

Steve. Even as Bucky came back to himself, he couldn’t quite believe anything he was seeing - not with Steve here, suddenly tall and healthy and looking at Bucky like he might fall apart any second. Steve was there when Bucky finally got his feet under himself enough to stumble out of the compound and reunite with his men. Steve hovered in the background while Dugan and Morita and Jones patted him on the back, told him they were glad to see him on his feet. Steve was there, leading them all away, then stopping to fall behind when Bucky fell hard onto the dirt path, having reached the very end of his rope. He was there, slinging one of Bucky’s arms around his own shoulders and pulling him along, practically carrying him. He was there with his unusually strong hand resting on Bucky’s back when the dizziness got to be too much and Bucky had to trip to the side of the road and get sick into the weeds. The shadows at the edges of Bucky’s vision were steadily dissipating, but Steve was still here, refusing to leave his side. Slowly, slowly, Bucky was forced to realize that, no matter how little sense it all made, this was real.

“Is this… am I dead?” Bucky had managed to ask, once they’d walked all night and the sun started to light up the sky beyond the clouds. Steve had just looked at him, and his eyes were the same as they’d always been, but there was something in them so soft it made him ache. Bucky couldn’t stand to look at him after that.

That new version of Steve stayed with him, hovering at his side like his own personal ghost, all the way back to camp. Bucky knew he would have stayed longer if he could have, but as soon as they made it back and someone in charge caught sight of Steve and the line of men behind him the whole camp erupted in chaos. Someone grabbed Steve by the arm and marched him away, leaving Bucky unmoored and lost in the sea of people marveling at how they were really back, really alive. Bucky hadn’t quite finished marveling about that, himself. 

“You’re looking pretty rough, man,” someone said, the words slow to reach Bucky through his exhaustion. “You oughta go get checked out.”

Bucky didn’t bother looking at the speaker, didn’t even really bother moving of his own accord. He just let himself get swept up in the crowd of men making their way over to the medic’s tent, more tired than he could ever remember being but somehow still moving forward. He thought, for a moment, that he might be okay. He’d made it out, and he was still pushing on. Maybe he could push right on past it all, pretend it never happened and go back to the way things had been. But then the medic’s tent came into view and Bucky smelled antiseptic in the air, heard someone groaning inside like he might be dying, and everything he’d been through flooded back through him with sickening clarity. Breath coming too fast, Bucky stumbled past the entrance of the makeshift hospital, just making it to an awning on the side of the tent before his knees buckled and he went down hard on the damp earth. 

It was cold, cold like metal tables and gloved hands and hospital smells and suddenly he was back there - _scream all you want, soldier. No one is coming, not for you. Not when they see what you are becoming..._

* * *

“...looking for Bu- for Sergeant Barnes, where is he?” 

Bucky wasn’t sure how long he’d been drifting, but the sound of a familiar voice somewhere inside the medic’s tent snapped him back to the present. He tried to listen, but the sound of his own ragged breath and the uncontrollable ringing in his ears drowned out the murmured reply. It wasn’t until someone tore open the flap of the tent and came running out towards him that Bucky managed to calm down enough to put the pieces together. 

“Buck!” It was Steve, of course it was. His body was so completely different, but Bucky would know that voice anywhere. “Bucky, what the hell are you doing sitting out here?” 

Steve’s newly huge body towering over him made Bucky feel incredibly small. He felt his shoulders hunch in on themselves under the bulk of his old jacket, and he found he couldn’t bring himself to look Steve in the eye. Evidently sensing Bucky’s discomfort, Steve slowly lowered himself to the ground until he and Bucky were sitting shoulder to shoulder. 

“They see you already?” Steve asked after a moment, almost tentatively. Even with his own eyes pointed firmly at his boots, Bucky could feel Steve looking at him like he could see all the way through him. Bucky was suddenly especially grateful for the coat Steve had somehow dragged halfway across the world for him. Its sleeves hid the points where the needle had pricked his elbow, still latently burning under the layers of fabric, and its collar hid the bruises that started on his torso and marched all the way up his neck. Under Steve’s gaze, Bucky wrestled the sleeves further down his bony wrists, trying in vain to cover the spots where the restraints of the table had rubbed him raw and bloody. 

“Nah,” he said with as much conviction as possible, uncomfortably aware of the tremor in his voice. “Not going in.”

“Not…” Steve sounded so exasperated that Bucky finally had to look at him. He regretted it when Steve didn’t meet his eyes, just kept staring at the place where his jacket was now barely covering the wounds on his arms. “Whaddaya mean you’re not going in?”

As though Bucky could have ever hoped to hide it. As though Steve hadn’t seen the evidence of what they’d done to him before he’d put on that jacket. As though the ugly marks they’d beaten into his face weren’t still on full display. It was written all over him, everything that had happened. 

“I _mean_ , I’m not going in,” Bucky bit out with a frustration that surprised even him. “Just drop it, okay?”

Bucky felt guilty as soon as the words left his mouth. He wasn’t angry with Steve - at least, not about this. “Sorry,” he muttered, returning his gaze to his shoes. Somewhere in the distance, thunder was rolling.

Steve shook his head. “You know I can’t drop this, don’t you?” His voice was hovering somewhere between gentle and sharp, like he couldn’t tell which one he needed to be. “I mean, come on, Buck. Not two days ago you were strapped to a table in some godforsaken Nazi prison camp! You’re going in, no two ways about it.”

Bucky winced, Steve’s casual analysis of the situation making him feel like he was laid out and vulnerable on that table all over again. “Well, not two days ago I still thought you were safe back at home in the States,” he shot back, fighting to bury the mental image of the prison camp in question and keep it deeply interred. “What, are we just not gonna talk about that?” 

Steve took a deep breath beside him, and Bucky had a brief moment of vindictive pleasure at having disarmed Steve and his blustering confidence even a little. He was so tired he hardly felt guilty about it. 

“I mean, I was safe. At least, ‘til I left for Krieschberg.” Steve was smiling sheepishly, like it was all some kind of joke, and Bucky felt something buried deep inside him start to smolder. “I wasn’t fighting or anything. At least, not officially.” 

“So what the hell happened? How did you get here?” Bucky forced himself to look over at his best friend’s face, now inexplicably fastened to a body he didn’t recognize. All those years he’d spent aching for Steve, memorizing every tiny detail of his delicate frame, every look and gesture and characteristic that made him _Steve,_ now obliterated by this too-perfect soldier’s physique. Overcome with something almost like grief, Bucky’s next words drifted out in a half-formed whisper. “What did they do to you, Stevie?”

“I could ask you the same thing.” Steve’s voice was measured and clear in a way that Bucky, running on less than fumes, couldn’t even hope to emulate. “What the hell happened to _you_?” 

Like Bucky was the one who was different. Like the guards and the doctor and the war and everything else had really taken him and made him into something else. Like Steve could see straight through him and knew it. Bucky saw red.

“Goddammit, Steve!” Bucky jerked forward, suddenly needing to get as far away from Steve as possible, but was far too drained to climb to his feet. He settled for clenching his fists and squeezing his eyes shut, like he could make this parody of Steve disappear through sheer willpower. “What do you care, anyway? You oughta be back stateside drawing pictures right now, not over here prying into my damn life, but somehow this is all still happening and you gotta at least tell me how!”

Bucky hazarded a glance at Steve. He’d shifted away from Bucky during his outburst and now sat several feet away from him, but still close enough for Bucky to see the hurt written all over his face. Bucky’s stomach lurched uncomfortably. Maybe the doctor had been right about him after all.

“It was nothing I didn’t ask for,” Steve said quietly, still looking at Bucky like he didn’t fully know him anymore. And wasn’t that messed up, that Steve could turn up in the middle of a war zone wearing a brand new body and still look at Bucky like he was the stranger. 

Maybe they were both strangers, now. Thinking about what the doctor had told him about the effects of the “serum” they’d been giving him, Bucky had the sneaking suspicion that he might be more familiar with what Steve had gone through than he’d ever be willing to admit. He wrapped his arms around his middle, his right hand clutching at the crook of his elbow, the place where the doctor’s machines had dug into his skin. He cringed as pain shot down his arm. It felt like getting run through by an electric current. It felt like nothing he’d ever wanted for Steve.

“Did it hurt?” he forced himself to ask, despite the voice in his head telling him that he really didn’t want to know.

“A little.” Steve ran one of his sturdy hands over his mouth as he spoke, the gesture catching Bucky’s attention in spite of his still-tenuous relationship with his surroundings. It was Steve’s nervous tell, one that had always accompanied his insistences of _yeah, I’ve been resting_ and _I’m not cold_ and _the other guy started it_. The gesture would have been placatingly familiar in any other context, but the realization that Steve was now lying to him, on top of everything else, just served as kindling for the frustration already burning through him.

“Bullshit,” Bucky snapped. An image of Steve, strapped to a table and screaming, floated, unbidden, to the top of his mind. Bucky felt his breathing picking up its pace again, some deeply ingrained panic response to the idea of Steve, hurt and needing help. But Bucky hadn’t been there to help him, and now Steve was different and Bucky was different and -

“Is it… is it permanent?” Bucky asked, hoping against hope that maybe it wasn’t, that maybe things - that maybe _Steve_ \- would go back to normal and one day this would all feel like a bad dream. 

(He hoped that, maybe, the same could be said for whatever they’d done to him on that table. They’d said they’d made him a soldier, made the war a part of him. Maybe none of that would be permanent either.) 

Steve just smiled, a little proud and a little sad. “So far.”

Outside the shadow of the tent, a few raindrops began splattering against the dirty ground. Bucky curled his knees into his chest, suddenly cold.

“What’d they want you for, anyway?” Bucky asked, fear continually ratcheting up and tightening his chest. “They really pumped you full of serum - or, I mean, whatever - just to sell some war bonds?”

“It wasn’t supposed to be that. Not at first. I was supposed to be…” Steve looked about as scared as Bucky felt. “… a soldier. The - the first of many.”

“Dammit!” Bucky was panicking now, couldn’t control it. “You really just let them - and you were gonna -” 

“You’re not hearing me, Buck!” He was right, Bucky was having a hard time hearing anything over the blood pounding in his ears. “It was _my_ choice to make. Maybe it was dumb, but what else was I supposed to do? I was sick, and you were gone, and I just - I had to do something about it!”

“ _Fuck_ .” Bucky hadn’t had this much trouble breathing since he’d been dragged away to that godforsaken infirmary in the first place. “Fuck, I don’t know. I just… I can’t _believe_ you, Steve!”

For a few minutes, Bucky wasn’t capable of much other than hanging his head between his knees and trying to catch his breath. He thought surely Steve would get up and leave, go find more important things to do while Bucky sorted himself out enough to fill his lungs without hyperventilating. (Not like Bucky could be of any help to him anymore, anyway.) He was so convinced Steve had left him alone that he was surprised, after a few minutes had passed, to feel Steve’s broad shoulder brushing up against his own. Rather than increasing their distance, Steve had bridged the gap between them until they were shoulder to shoulder again, not even inches apart. He just sat there, waiting, while Bucky wound down.

“I can hardly believe myself some days,” Steve said eventually. Bucky unglued his head from his knees to see Steve examining his own hands with something akin to awe. “But I can breathe now, Buck. I never knew it could be this easy. And I don’t get aches and pains. Hell, I can walk all the way from Austria to Italy and hardly feel a damn thing. And - and I can see you again, now. So that’s gotta be something.”

Bucky shook his head in disbelief. Steve wasn’t going to convince him of anything, not when it sounded like he could hardly convince himself. Still, Bucky found that he didn’t even have the energy to fight him about it - he just let his eyes close and wound his arms around his knees, thinking he could probably fall asleep right there on the muddy ground. He might have, too, if his hand hadn’t brushed against the top of his boot in the process. There was something poking out of it - the folded piece of paper that had once meant everything to him, onto which he’d poured out his heart, now sitting and collecting grime between his shoe and his sock. Suddenly he had to know.

“So all those letters you wrote me. Was any of that… was that all just made up?”

He felt Steve tense up beside him. “Well, not - all of it,” Steve said defensively. “Some of it was true. I went to all those cities, and I was some kind of artist. Even drew a couple of the posters myself. And the hotels really did have hot water all the time, and I had to hold all those babies, and…” Bucky didn’t even bother lifting his head, just let Steve talk until he trailed off. 

“And the…” Bucky finally whispered into the space between his knees. “And the Grand Canyon?”

Steve let out a long sigh, sounding as defeated as Bucky felt. “I really went there. Wish I hadn’t, really, I just wasn’t sure we could - wasn’t sure if you’d ever - well.” Steve paused to take a steadying breath. In the absence of his stammering Bucky could hear the rain, pouring down in steady and unrelenting sheets. 

“It did look like fall, though.” Steve murmured, barely audible over the downpour. “Just like the picture.”

That damn Grand Canyon picture. Bucky wondered for a moment where it was. Probably buried in the mud somewhere up north, or in the pocket of some enterprising soldier from the other side who’d gone looking for a dry cigarette or a bit of food. Everything Steve had sent him throughout his deployment, save the paper currently stuffed in his boot, was gone, surely lost to looters or to the relentless weather. He lifted his head, wondering if Steve had somehow seen those remnants of the apartment sketch currently taking up residence in his shoe, but Steve wasn’t even looking at him. His eyes were fixated on the rain.

The way the gray morning light framed his face made him look smaller, softer, sadder. Looking at his profile, Bucky almost felt like he was seeing the same Steve he’d written out his dying confession to, but when Steve turned his head to look at Bucky and his newly broad torso came into focus, the illusion vanished. Bucky felt sick.

“You know I used to keep that drawing you did, the one of the apartment, on me all the time?” he said. Some part of Bucky wanted Steve to hurt, wanted him to feel that same sense of loss Bucky did now that everything had changed and Steve had changed along with it. “Always held it in my pocket. Whenever I was in a tough spot I’d pull it out and look at it. Made me think about you back home and safe in New York. But that was a lie, wasn’t it? That whole time, it wasn’t even you doing the lying. I was the one over here lying to myself.” He knew he needed to stop, that he wasn’t thinking straight, but the words just kept falling out, faster than he could think them through.

“What’re you saying here, Buck?” Steve’s voice was suddenly icy, colder than the rain leaking through the awning of the tent. 

“I don’t - I don’t _know_ anymore!” Bucky was spiralling and he knew it, but found himself utterly powerless to make it stop. Everything just felt _wrong_ , like being in that factory had broken something inside him and now all the jagged pieces were trying to claw their way out. “I just - I wish you hadn’t done it. I wish things could just… go back to the way they were.”

“Really? You really wish I hadn’t done it?” Bucky had never heard Steve talk like that before. Steve was always explosive in his anger, never far from picking an argument or jumping into a fight. This quiet, focused rage was something unique to the new version of Steve, and it was a part of him Bucky firmly decided he didn’t like. “What was so great about the way things were, Bucky? You mean the two of us, barely scraping together enough to eat, wearing shoes we got from friends of friends of people who used to know my Ma? You mean working yourself to the bone while I sat staring into the fire and wondering if I was going to live to see one more day?” 

Some part of Bucky knew Steve was right, their life before the war hadn’t exactly been easy, but that knowledge only served to make him angrier. All he’d really been fighting for was the chance to return to that life, and now Steve was telling him he’d never really wanted it?

Steve was still speaking, his voice getting deadlier with every word. “Or do you mean me, sitting in our apartment all by myself, wondering if I should call the crazy doctor who told me he could fix all of me or kill me trying, and getting in touch with him because God only knew if you were coming home _ever again_ \- and even if you were I might not have be there to see it? All that, and you're really gonna sit there and tell me I shouldn't have done it, Buck?"

That sweet shortened nickname that only Steve ever called him, tacked so casually onto the end of the onslaught, was the final straw.

“Fuck! Fuck off, Steve, I don’t need this!” Bucky tried to stand up but he couldn’t breathe and his head was spinning and he was so mad he could hardly see. He fell back miserably, feeling frigid rainwater start to bleed through his uniform pants. “I read your damn letters over and over, you know? You were always telling me that I was gonna be fine, that you knew I was gonna make it back. Hell, almost sounded like you _missed_ me, missed being poor and miserable in that crap apartment together. Didn’t realize you were just dying for me to leave so you could get away from it!” Bucky’s voice fractured on the last syllable, and he turned his face away in an effort to keep Steve from noticing. He wished, not for the first time, that he had even a fraction of Steve’s nerve. He may have been labelled a fighter now, but before that he’d always been soft.

Steve was quiet for a moment, taking deep and measured breaths while Bucky’s shoulders shook. “I did miss you, Bucky,” he said finally, his voice unreadable. “I missed you and it drove me crazy, but you can’t just sit here and - and act like this. Just _think_ about this for a second. We’re _together_ , and I can actually _see_ you and you’re _alive_ and all you wanna do is sit here and tell me you wish things were back ‘the way they were.’ I’m right in front of you, right now! Isn’t that what you wanted? What do you have to reminisce about, now?”

“Dammit, just - shut _up_ , Steve, I don’t know! Okay?” Bucky was crying, hardly feeling it as tears mixed with rainwater flowing down his cheeks. “I just - everything’s different and I don’t know where I fit and I don’t know what to think and I -” It was too much, all of it. “I’m just so fucking _tired!_ ”

Bucky buried his face in his hands despite knowing it was useless, despite knowing that Steve could probably see the tears streaking through the grime on his face. A bitter voice inside him told him it was about time Steve realized he was weak. 

Steve’s shoulder moved away from Bucky’s, leaving cold air in its wake, and Bucky, still curled into himself with his face in his hands, couldn’t stop himself from listing sideways toward the void it left. He didn’t think he’d ever craved comfort so much. 

“Well then, for God’s sake, lemme help you.”

Bucky glanced up to see Steve kneeling in front of him, outside the protective shadow of the tent, seemingly not caring about the rain flattening his hair or the mud that was probably getting all over the knees of his stupid Captain America suit. He was focused all on Bucky, his wide blue eyes still so familiar they hurt to look at.

“It ain’t a question of where you _fit_ ,” Steve continued, some of the edge finally bleeding out of his voice. “You fit where you always have, and that’s right here with me. I mean, if you still want to. I won’t make you. I - I know I’m - different, but it’s really just my looks, that’s all.” 

Steve was leaning in closer, his new bulk practically radiating warmth, and Bucky’s misplaced anger hardly felt significant anymore. All he wanted in the world was wrap his shivering arms around Steve and never let him go. Before the factory, he thought, maybe he could have gotten away with it, pulling Steve close and holding him and maybe, just maybe, finally saying something stupid like _I love you._ As it was now, Steve was the one that moved, reaching out and brushing his fingers, just slightly, over the curve of Bucky’s bruised jaw, tilting his head up so they were looking eye to eye.

“I swear, I’m still the same dumb kid,” Steve said earnestly. “I’ve just got some actual bite now. But - that’s not what I’m trying to say. I’m just saying, you don’t have to wonder where you fit. Not now, not ever. There’s always a spot right here if you want it.”

Staring into Steve’s eyes, with Steve staring unflinchingly back, Bucky almost started to believe him. Bucky felt himself leaning forward, not knowing what he wanted exactly, just knowing that, in that moment, he needed Steve more than anything else in the world. For a second he really thought Steve felt the same way, his fingers still playing on the line of Bucky’s jaw like he couldn’t quite bear to let go - but then a shout ringing out from behind Steve’s broad silhouette shattered the moment. Bucky leaned away.

“Captain! Captain - America, sir?”

Steve was on his feet in an instant, positioning himself in front of Bucky’s trembling form so as to shield him from whoever was asking. 

“Mr. Keller,” Steve said, sounding strained. “They need me back in the doghouse?”

“Something like that,” the man - Keller, Bucky supposed - replied brightly. Bucky would have rolled his eyes if he’d had the energy. “They want you in the Colonel’s tent. Spitting mad, don’t know how you’ll get yourself out of this one!”

“I’m sure I’ll manage just fine,” Steve said. Even from his cramped position on the ground, Bucky could see him running a hand sheepishly over the back of his neck. Bucky sighed. Only Steve would be this nonchalant in the face of being court martialed. 

It went quiet for a moment, like Steve was just waiting for the other guy to leave, then-

“...sir, do you mind if I ask? Did you really save all those men with nothing but a wooden shield?”

Of course he did.

“Something like that,” Steve said, clearly proud in spite of himself. “Tell you about it later, if you like.”

Evidently finally taking Steve’s words as the dismissal they were, Keller started retracing his steps, boots splashing through the mud as he went. Steve turned back to Bucky, smiling nervously, like he knew the colonel wouldn’t be the only one issuing a reprimand. Bucky just gritted his teeth, electing to save his for later, sometime when he’d be able to control his voice enough to really let Steve have it. 

“Fucking hell, Steve. Just go.” 

“You sure?” Steve asked softly, clearly still a bit taken aback by the tears on Bucky’s hollow cheeks. “I mean, I’m already in big trouble - what’s a little more? Could maybe stay for a couple minutes.” 

Bucky laughed emptily, warm fondness in his chest still warring with a feeling of betrayal he couldn’t shake. “God. You’ve never had an ounce of self-preservation.”

“Not near an ounce, no.” Steve moved like he wanted to kneel next to Bucky again, half-reaching a hand in his direction, but shifted at the last second and shoved the hand into the pocket of his coat instead. Bucky tried not to let his disappointment show. “We ain’t done talking about this, are we?”

Bucky swiped a little too hard at the moisture under his eyes. “Guess not,” he said.

“Right,” Steve sighed. “Look, I dunno when they’re gonna let me loose, but when they do, I’m gonna come find you. Would you be willing to talk to me then?”

Bucky nodded wearily in response. “Okay.”

“Okay.” Steve turned to go, but didn’t seem able to make himself do it. He looked over his shoulder at Bucky, hunched on the ground, and his steps faltered. “We’re gonna be just fine, you know?”

“Sure,” Bucky muttered. 

Steve let out a long-suffering sigh, his whole body tense like it always got when he was upset about something and didn’t want to let it show. When he was smaller, that posture had usually led straight into him throwing punches. Now, all it translated to was a frustrated hand raked through his wet hair, showering tiny droplets over the expanse of his broad shoulders.

“You had better go in,” he said finally, nodding toward the medical tent. “Let ‘em look you over. I’ll know if you don’t.”

Bucky opened his mouth to say something, but he got stuck somewhere between _screw you_ and _god, please don’t go._ It was too late, anyway; Steve had already left, his straight posture and purposeful stride helping him blend in perfectly with the environment of the camp as he walked away. 

* * *

Bucky didn’t go get checked out.

He sat with his back to the canvas outer wall of the tent for what felt like forever, until his hands were numb and his hair was soaked through. He figured someone out there was probably looking for him, aiming to take inventory of everyone who’d made it out of the factory alive, but he vowed to deal with it later. He was so beyond tired he didn’t think he could have managed it.

Eventually the rain slowed to a mere trickle, leaving a wintry chill in its wake. Faced with the prospects of either getting up or ending up frozen solid in the mud, Bucky finally found the willpower to haul himself to his feet, swaying a little as he went. He staggered off in the vague direction of the barracks before realizing he probably didn’t have an assigned cot there anymore. He was a little unsure of how long they’d been gone, but he was certain it had been long enough for the beds to be reallocated to soldiers who were still here, soldiers lucky enough to still have some use for them. 

He managed to waylay a group of uniformed men on his way toward the barracks. They, too, were dirty and too-thin, but clean-cut enough to convey that they hadn’t been among those just now returning to the camp. 

“I’m - I’m looking for -” Bucky started, exhaustion slurring his words together.

“You looking for medical, son? You look just about dead on your feet.”

“No, just - looking for a bed.”

The soldiers shared a look. Bucky half-expected them to turn him around and point him back in the direction of the medical tent, but when they turned their attention back to him it was with an air of sympathetic understanding.

“Yeah, you ought to get some rest,” one of the men said. “Heard they’re putting all the new arrivals up in section 1B. Ought to be a bed for you there.”

Bucky muttered his thanks before pressing on, feeling the soldiers’ eyes on his back as he went. The version of him that had existed before the factory might have turned around to gripe at them for it, good-naturedly shooting back that they ought to take a picture, it would last longer. As it was, the frustration he felt over the constant scrutiny, first from Steve and now from seemingly everyone else, was at least tempered by his all-encompassing exhaustion. He kept his head down and avoided everyone’s eyes, pretending he couldn’t see them looking at him, trying to piece together everything he’d been through. 

It was only midday, so the barracks were blessedly empty when Bucky stumbled inside. The cots lined up side by side in 1B were stripped bare with the expectation that the soldiers would supply the blankets they’d been individually issued, but every one of Bucky’s possessions, army-issued or otherwise, was currently buried in a trench god knew how many miles away, and finding someone to mark him down as accounted for and assign him new gear was far more than Bucky felt he could handle. He collapsed on the nearest bare cot without even bothering to remove his boots, pulling his arms out of the sleeves of his wet coat in order to burrow under it in the absence of a real blanket. As he buried his nose in the collar of the coat, Bucky caught a whiff of something familiar; a tang of sweat undercut by something fresh, like the ridiculous citrusy aftershave Steve had always used despite the fact that he’d never been able to grow more than a hint of peach fuzz. 

Bucky had a sudden recollection of his own much-younger self standing with a much-smaller Steve in front of his ma’s bathroom mirror, watching Steve’s usually steady artist’s hands struggle to guide a razor over his sharp cheekbones. Bucky had stepped in to help despite Steve’s protestations, gently cupping his face as he showed Steve how to shave along the grain, working carefully in order to avoid nicks and razor burn. When they’d finished, Bucky had rummaged through the Rogers’ cabinets until he found that lemon aftershave, buried near the back. Steve’s dad’s. He still remembered how soft Steve’s skin had felt as he’d gently worked the gel into his face, the smell of lemon wafting up to fill the bathroom. Steve had smiled a little at Bucky, then, and Bucky still remembered the way his heart had leapt in response.

The memory was so vivid Bucky felt lost inside it, all the sharp edges of his current reality softening as the world narrowed to that moment, what felt like a lifetime ago. The last thing he remembered before losing consciousness was the feeling of his hand on Steve’s face, leaving him with fresh tears in his eyes and a tiny, wistful, yearning reflection of the smile Steve had offered him that day playing at the corners of his own mouth as he fell asleep. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -S


	21. Melting

After three full days of meetings, it was difficult not to let his attention wander. Currently he was engrossed with the mud caked on the bottoms of Phillips’s shoes—he was certain they hadn’t been cleaned since the day Steve marched back into camp with four hundred odd soldiers stumbling behind him. It had rained that day while he was sitting outside the medical tents with Bucky, and it had only let up in short bursts, and then always while Steve was in the middle of another yelling match with some officer or another. It felt like he hadn’t seen the sun in days, no matter how hard he tried to find it. With Phillips having his food brought in and a cot set up in his own tent so that Steve could be at the beck and call of everyone who wanted him to explain  _ one more time _ just who he thought he was and how he managed to do it, he had hardly been able to go out into the camp at all. He managed to find Bucky once that first night, curled up in a cot in the corner of the temporary barracks looking dead to the world, but he couldn’t bring himself to do more than sit on the edge of the bed and stare until the sun came up again. The few times he had managed to make an escape after that it was pouring sheets and he always lost sight of whatever brunet mop of hair he thought he spotted. 

His own boots showed the dismal fruits of his labors, army green scaled over with a much less pleasant shade of brown than the one he sought. Glancing back at Phillips’s boots, he wondered how they had possibly ended up in a worse state than his own. Shameful really, a Colonel who didn’t clean his boots. 

The near constant grating of Phillips’s voice ceased suddenly, and Steve lifted his eyes and hoped that he wasn’t expected to provide some sort of response. He was met with the sight of Keller, smiling nervously and passing Phillips a small stack of papers. The furrow in the Colonel’s brow dropped down to his mouth at whatever was on the paper, and a short huff escaped his mouth. Keller just stood there at his side and wiggled his fingers in Steve’s direction in what he assumed was a greeting. His responding smile and nod were cut short when Phillips laid the papers on his desk and leaned back in his chair in a way that was not unlike the position he took when denying Steve’s request for a rescue mission.

“Well, Rogers, congratulations.”

Congratulations were, in a word, unexpected. “Sir?”

“It looks like you’re getting what you wanted.”

Steve wracked his brain—he had gotten the rescue mission, he had gotten Bucky. “What I wanted? You mean—”

“Yes. We’ve been trying to figure out what to do with you, how the hell we can discipline Captain America when you waltz in here a hero, and we’ve finally come up with something. You’re going to be assigned to a special unit—you can take who you want, but you’re going to run the missions _we_ tell you to, and you’re going to do it far away from here.”  
“Doesn’t sound much like a punishment, sir.”

The line of Phillips’s mouth slanted violently in obvious displeasure. “No, it doesn’t.” 

Steve fought back a grin, certain that it wouldn’t go over well as long as Phillips was around. He didn’t have to wait long though—the man stood without further delay and handed Steve a portion of the stack of papers he had been given. “You’ve got to the end of the week to choose, and if you try stealing another jeep before then I will tell my men to shoot on sight.” Steve’s face flushed at the reminder, but Phillips merely sat down, his attention already turned to the next problem in line. “Dismissed, soldier.”

Steve nodded, though if Phillips saw he didn’t let on. As he left the tent he could feel Keller’s presence at his back, the exuberant nervous energy almost rolling off the young man. Sure enough, Steve was only two steps clear of the canvas flap when Keller bounded forward so that he was walking beside Steve. “Well, that could have gone a whole lot worse—I’d say you got off easy, Captain!”

A part of Steve wanted to brush past Keller and ignore him, but when he turned his head and saw the genuine smile on the kid’s face he couldn’t bring himself to do anything but grin. “You can call me Steve, Keller.” His Ma didn’t raise him to be cruel. 

The look that came over the kid’s face almost drew a chuckle from Steve—it was damn near twitterpated. “Steve, then. I just knew they wouldn’t give you a bum rap on this one. I mean, you saved all those guys, and all on your own—I think there’d be a riot.”

Steve sighed and shrugged. “I was really only looking to save one.”

“You mean Sergeant Barnes?” 

Keller was practically bouncing as he walked alongside Captain America, seemingly oblivious to the shocked look Steve was sending his way. “Yeah, actually. How do you know about Bucky?”

“Everyone knows.” Keller continued when he saw Steve’s confusion. “Well, not everybody, see. It’s just that, the guys talk, and they say you basically went to hell and back for this guy, and after you already had the others out. Said you’re a real hero.”

Steve breathed a soft sigh of relief—if that’s as far as people’s interest in  _ his _ interest in Buck went, then he might be grateful for the heroic screen of stars, stripes, and cheesy titles. “I ain’t a hero, but soldiers are worse than old fishwives.”

To his credit, Keller seemed to realize that being the subject of gossip wasn’t high on Steve’s wishlist and looked a little abashed. “Well you ain’t whistling Dixie, that’s for sure.”

“Yeah. Listen, Keller, I actually need to find Buck—Sergeant Barnes. You wouldn’t have any idea where I could find him?”

“Well,” the flush on Keller’s cheeks spread down his neck, “I saw him heading for the bar in the town near camp just an hour or two ago. Figured what with all this talk about you saving him, you might want to see him once Phillips finished chewing you out.”

Steve clapped Keller on the shoulder and gave him a genuine smile, untempered by his frustration at three days without the chance to check on Buck. “Thanks Keller, I owe you one.”

He heard Keller shouting something at his back as he started jogging in the direction of the town, but he just raised a hand up in acknowledgment and continued on. 

The walk over to the town and the little dive bar within it seemed to take no time at all, and all too soon Steve found himself staring at the wooden door without any idea of what he was going to do if he managed to find Bucky inside. Worse, he had no idea what Bucky was going to do when he saw him. He knew he was being avoided. Aside from that first night when he held an endless vigil by Bucky’s side, any glimpse of that face—sallow and drawn, pinched in some pain Steve didn’t want to guess at, but still undeniably Bucky—ended with dead ends. There had been no chance to rehash their argument from outside the medical tent, and the more Steve thought, the more he was sure that there was nothing he could do to make up for what he did. Whether he’d admit it or not, and he doubted already that he would, he felt like he’d taken something from Buck that he couldn’t give back. It wasn’t surprising that his lying had gotten Buck all but running from him, and he’d have to pray that the truth’d get him out of it.

When he finally pushed open the door, the sounds of soldiers hiding from troubles more intangible than their superiors enveloped him and nearly sent his enhanced hearing ringing. A few steps into the bar and he couldn’t catch sight of anyone that looked like Bucky, and he had almost resolved to go and ask the bartender if he’d seen Buck when he heard a loud yell from the back corner of the room. 

“Hey, if it isn’t our favorite Star-Spangled Man with a Plan! Get over here, Captain!” 

Steve’s head whipped around and he sent up a prayer of thanks at what he saw. He glanced only briefly at the vaguely familiar soldier who had called out to him, his eyes immediately drawn to another that he definitely recognized. Slumping in his seat and looking for all the world like he wanted the ground to swallow him up was James Buchanan Barnes, still pale and bruised despite the echo of laughter ringing around his eyes. Steve couldn’t have felt any remorse at interrupting his good time if he’d wanted to—and he very much didn’t want to. “Major Falsworth!” Or was it Dernier? He just slapped his best Captain America smile on and headed over, hoping he got it right. “Good to see you under better circumstances.”

By the end of his statement Steve had made it to the table, and stood in the space directly opposite Bucky, addressing the other five men sat at the table but staring intensely all the while at the top of Bucky’s head. “See you found Sergeant Barnes.” Sergeant Barnes looking all doleful and nosing a whiskey that must’ve been there for a long time, because Buck never was one to drink it straight and there wasn’t any ice to be seen in the amber liquid. “That’s a real tough job, apparently.”

Now, he took a drink. Steve’s smile twitched, and he had to fight to keep it from dropping into a scowl when he took in the still-split lip and bruised face. He just knew Bucky wasn’t gonna go see a nurse. The brief uncomfortable silence that ensued was broken by one of the men Steve definitely didn’t know, who glanced between Steve staring at Bucky and Bucky staring at his glass and snorted louder than Steve would’ve thought anyone capable of. “Trouble in paradise, boys?”

Steve didn’t even have the chance to acknowledge the twinge of panic at the expression that fell so easily from the soldier’s admittedly loose mouth before the man had turned to the other unfamiliar faces sat around the table. “You know this guy—Mr. America sir—you know he came all the way to Austria and the first thing he did when he found us was he told Dernier and Falsworth to get us out and asked them to point him to Barnes? I mean what are we man, chopped liver?”

Now it was Steve staring resolutely at the table, all too aware of Bucky’s gaze suddenly locked curiously on him amid the din of too-loud laughter around the table. He shrugged. “Guess I’ve just got a one-track mind. You made it anyway, huh?” The chorus of decidedly unmanly giggles that arose from the three unfamiliar guys reminded Steve that before he walked up, Buck had been laughing with them. “And it’s Steve, please. None of that Mr. America stuff.”

Falsworth had stood up on shaky legs that were a testament to just how drunk all these guys—Bucky excepted, it seemed—had gotten. The guy was so sloshed that he didn’t even pretend to notice Steve’s discomfort at being clung to like a vine. “Steve, Steven, Stevie—can I call you Stevie?” He also didn’t seem to notice the daggers Buck was glaring, though Steve did. “Stevie, you gotta meet the others here. You know Dernier. We’ve got Jones, Morita—be careful with him, Stevie, he’s a real ring a-ding-ding—and over there with his head under the table is Dugan.”

If Falsworth knew who was who, Steve sure as hell couldn’t tell from his wobbly gestures, so he settled for directing a quick wave at the entire table. “Bucky’s told me some about you, it’s nice to meet you guys. Any friend of his is a friend of mine.”

It seemed that was the wrong thing to say, because the second the words left his mouth Bucky abandoned his half-full glass on the table. The way his face screwed up in pain when he stood and the slight stumble in his step as he made his way to the bar had Steve thinking of endless staircases and broken beams, and suddenly he wanted nothing more than to get the both of them out of that damn room. 

Someone grabbed at his sleeve as he stepped around the table and over an empty bottle. “Hey, hey, Cap—they really have you pose for those posters in the tights and everything or—” 

“Hey, ‘scuse me for just a minute—I’ll get back to you guys, good to meet you.” He didn’t bother turning around, too focused on the way Buck was whiteknuckling the edge of the bar and staring at his hands like he didn’t understand why they were shaking. It seemed like it only took three strides to reach his side, and Steve hadn’t spared a thought for Buck just maybe not wanting to talk to him still when his hand came up to rest on Buck’s shoulder. 

“Hey, Buck.” The small flinch that came with the touch of the hand made Steve lower his voice. “Were you wanting to talk over here, or?”

The scoff that left Bucky’s split lips was the worst sound he could make, because it was one Steve had never heard directed at himself before. “What for? Clearly doing fine on your own.” 

Buck finished off the words with a shaky smile that didn’t even pull to his eyes, going for teasing but landing somewhere closer to agonized. Agony is exactly what he was feeling, Steve realized with a shock. Sitting here, staring into Bucky’s eyes for the first time since he had been muddled beyond what Steve could comprehend, it was so easy to see it. Buck had always put on a good face, always a handsome one, sometimes sweet and sometimes confident, and Steve had learned early that if he wanted to know Buck he needed to know his eyes. It helped him now, as he sat there picking apart the different emotions running rampant behind the shield of Bucky’s smile. Agony, fear, the two were intertwined too closely to do away with. He looked for the pain, the effects of all the wounds he had seen in the factory and chosen to ignore until they were back on better ground, the worst of which he knew were hidden just behind the bounds of the old jacket. He looked for the pain, but just kept finding fear in all its forms. Fear of what? Of the doctor, of course, and his table, and whatever that meant to Bucky that Steve was sure he’d not be privy to, not for a long while. But to keep Bucky running from Steve and not to him, there had to be more. Steve unconsciously flexed his hand where it still rested on Bucky’s shoulder, and the man tensed in response.

The realization hit Steve like a freight train, and was just as devastating. He didn’t know what he could say. 

“Walk with me? I think we gotta finish our talk.”

Buck flashed him a wan smile, but Steve didn’t believe it for a minute. “‘Course. Dunno what we’ve got to talk about, though.”

Steve grinned back, a little stretched and a little sad, and shoved both of his hands deep in his pockets as the two began walking to the back door. “Trust me, we’ve got plenty. Come on.”

The silence between the two felt deafening, the distance insurmountable except for the brief moment when Steve held the back door open and Buck brushed past him. He smelled like sweat, and mud, and maybe it was wishful thinking but Steve could have sworn there was some undercurrent of brown sugar and rum. The door opened into a little back alley, narrow but long, and Steve followed Buck to a stretch of wall some distance away from the door and took up his place leaning against the brick, at least two feet of space between them. Despite staring straight ahead, Steve could tell that Buck was shivering, and he found himself wondering if it was the chill still lingering in the air. When he had the thought he had to fight against taking off his own jacket and laying it over Buck’s shoulders—doubted he’d welcome that right now. 

When Steve finally turned to Buck, he saw his head upturned towards the grey sky, and if he hadn’t known better then he’d have thought he was praying. Steve let his eyes run down the length of his neck, where what looked like more bruises were disappearing just below his shirt. “I told you I’d know if you didn’t go. Why are you doing this to yourself, Bucky?”

Buck didn’t even turn towards Steve, just let his gaze drop to the ground. With his downturned head and the slight hunch to his shoulders, he looked as Steve had never seen him. He looked small, and he looked afraid. “Look, I just—I couldn’t. I couldn’t go, okay? It’s too much like—I couldn’t go back.”

It seemed obvious now, so obvious that Steve couldn’t help but want to kick himself for trying to force Bucky’s hand. “Couldn’t go back on somebody’s table?”

The small flinch and smaller nod were enough of an answer, and Steve pinned his gaze against the opposite side of the alley, staring straight ahead. “I could help.” He felt more than saw the questioning look Bucky shot him. “You know, when we’re done talking. No doctors, no med tent, if you’ll let me.”

Steve could practically hear the gears grinding for a full minute before Bucky finally spoke up. “...yeah. Yeah, okay.” When Steve turned to look at him, he was met with another one of those shaky smiles, though this one at least got closer to Bucky’s typical over-confident grin. “Guess you’ve probably picked up some first aid skills over the years, watching me patch you up time and again.”

Maybe he should have gone with what Bucky obviously wanted, but Steve wasn’t ready to lighten the mood yet. He had promised himself there’d be no more lies, and the truths he had to tell didn’t really jive with any attempt at joking around. “Never realized it was that hard to watch someone carry on like that. I guess that’s one more thing I gotta apologize for, huh?”

Buck gave Steve a small, tight smile, and the little shake of his head did nothing to loosen the guilt that had been building up in Steve for over a year now. “Nah, Stevie. You don’t gotta apologize for nothing.” It sounded about as sincere as that smile felt.

If Steve could have seen himself, he would have said that he folded in on himself at Bucky’s words. As it was, all he registered was his lips stretching into an awkward smile and, not for the first time, the feeling of being given more than he deserved. “Really though, never woulda gotten anywhere without you, dumb as I am.” He ran a hand through his hair, suddenly nervous. “Makes me think of something else I gotta ask, actually.” Bucky’s expectant look was so familiar that he just kept going. “So, I’ve been getting chewed out the last couple of days, you know. Disciplinary hearing and all that jazz. Well, they asked me—more like told, but I ain’t gonna split hairs here—they asked me to stay on. Work with sort of a, a special unit. Handpicked. Phillips has final say but, well, they want me to do the asking.”

“Oh. That’s—wow.” Steve was half worried Buck was about to shoot him down point blank—after all, why would he want to follow Steve into worse than he’d already been through?—but after a moment of thought Buck continued calmly. “I mean, I know some people… Dugan, Morita, Jones, all great guys. Tonight excepted, maybe. Saved my ass more times than I can count.”

“Well, that’s a world of good in their corners already. But I was sorta wondering about you.” The way Bucky’s jaw dropped just a fraction had Steve scrambling to qualify. “I mean, wondering whether you’re even gonna stay. I heard they’d let you go back, if you wanted. And I just wanted to know, you know, if you did want that.”

Buck was just staring at him, eyebrows raised and leaning in, and it was driving Steve a little crazy that he was surprised Steve wanted him to stay. “Really, you want me for your… your team, or whatever? After—after all this?”

Steve thought about the scene in the infirmary, about Buck strapped to a table for God knows how long going through who knows what, about the way he kept flinching whenever Steve went for a casual touch. “I just mean, if you did want to stay, of course I’d want you with me. But I get it if you want to— _ need _ to leave. I wouldn’t stop you, I just, yeah. If you did want to stay.”

Buck breathed in sharply and tilted his head back against the brick wall of the alleyway, eyes fixed on the clouds that were beginning to send down miniscule white flecks over their heads. Steve hadn’t realized it was that cold. He had the sudden inappropriate urge to stick out his tongue and catch one, or see if he could cradle one in his palm and preserve it there through sheer power of will, something in his pocket that would never change. Buck let him simmer like that, just staring at a point far away or maybe at all the points, the whole sky, because his face was just too open and raw to be narrowly focused on one thing. So he left Steve swirling around in his own head like the light flurries on the breeze.

The small chuckle that finally left Bucky’s throat was rough around the edges, but it warmed Steve from the inside out. “‘Course I’m staying, Stevie. If you’ll have me. ‘Til the end of the line, right? Ain’t nothing gonna change that. At least, not for me.”

Relief was instantaneous, and the force of it dragged Steve away from the wall and compelled him to clutch Bucky’s arm. Steve thought wildly that life must be just a study in dichotomies, because when he looked into Bucky’s eyes there was guilt, too. In all his years Steve rarely felt guilty, always so sure that what he was doing was right, and here he was standing guilty because he’ll be stringing Bucky along at his side and guilty because he almost didn’t care. “‘Till the end of the line, Buck. Always.”

And then Bucky smiled at him,  _ really _ smiled in a way Steve hadn’t seen for what might have been a lifetime. He’d seen that smile time and again, heard it in Buck’s voice when no one else was around and he let himself go all soft, felt it from across their little apartment, and all Steve could think was that if he could only taste that smile against his own, then he’d really understand what it meant. 

Just thinking it felt like crossing a line, and his mouth knew the shameful taste of ash instead of Bucky. Removing his hands from Bucky’s warmth felt like a lie. Steve didn’t know if he could handle another lie, or maybe he just didn’t want to shoulder this one. “Buck I, there’s one more thing you gotta know before you really decide to stay.”

“Yeah. Anything, Steve.” The sincerity in Bucky’s eyes twisted Steve’s stomach into knots; he had to turn away.

“Buck, I...aw heck—” 

Steve threw his head upwards and stared at the sky, wondering at the snow falling. If raindrops are God’s tears, Steve wondered, then what the hell was snow? It was bringing him near to tears just thinking about it, or maybe that was the number of flakes falling straight into his eye. He let up and dropped his head, meeting Bucky’s eyes. They’d always been expressive, and now it was like they were screaming—nerves, suspicion, too many things to mention, more than Steve could stand to pick apart. He thought about the snow, instead. He thought about the way it was made of tiny droplets of water, all wrapped around dust and minerals and whatever else was stuck in the air. A bit of Heaven and a bit of Earth, all frozen together. He thought about the way it was already starting to blanket things in white—Bucky’s head, for one—and how the number of flakes it took to dust Bucky’s shoulders and head was already blessedly innumerable, like the stars in the sky or the grains of sand on a beach. He thought about how it fell silently, gently, gentle enough that it could fleck Bucky’s eyelashes—long, almost like a dame’s—without making him flinch in the slightest. It was then that Steve realized the snow wasn’t just covering Bucky, it was reaching out to him, to both of them. Standing there breathless at the sight of Bucky framed in white, he knew the answer. If rain was God crying, letting his heavenly sorrow fall down in sheets to the earth, then snow was God’s blessings. Thousands, millions, more than that, reaching out in purity, asking Steve to trust on his own terms.

Steve saw Bucky again, saw his eyes, and it seemed like the snow had enveloped them both, and he found that he didn’t mind because this—this day, this scene in front of him—this was inevitable. “I love you.”

“You—what?” Steve didn’t need to be looking at Bucky’s face to see the way it fell, the way he ran through so many emotions at once—shock, anger, and was that hope? Or wishful thinking?—but he was looking, and he couldn’t look away now.

Steve kept his posture relaxed, determined that even if what Bucky wanted to do was sock him in the face, that he’d let him do it. Whatever happened, he had to see it through. “I’m in love with you, I...that’s what I mean.”

Buck stared open-mouthed for so long that Steve had half a mind to snap his fingers in front of his face to see if he was still in there, but just when his hand twitched upwards Buck opened his mouth. “Don’t...don’t say that, Steve. You don’t even know—you can’t just say that to me.”

Steve had expected confusion, or anger, but not this. Not Bucky staring at him, looking like he didn’t know whether to run to Steve or away from him, looking at him with everything that Steve felt pouring out through his own expression and a little frantic besides. God bless his heart, but it gave him hope.

“I’m sorry, but it’s true—Bucky, I’m in love with you and I think—” Steve thought of portraits, and shoes lined with newspaper, and birds singing  _ po-ta-to-chip _ in the park. “—I think I have been for a real long time.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying.” Buck took a small step backwards, and it felt like a noose around Steve’s neck, but his hand was twitching at his side like he wanted to reach out and that had to be some kind of sign.

Steve reached out for him and laced their fingers together, and despite his fears that Buck was about to bolt like a skittish colt he felt his own cheeks flush at the way that hand wrapped warmly around his own. Buck was busy staring down at their intertwined hands like he’d never seen such a thing before, but he didn’t try to pull away, and that would have to be enough encouragement for Steve.

“I used to watch you.” Bucky’s eyes snapped back onto Steve’s face, and he tried to focus on the snow chilling his outstretched hand instead of the piercing attention placed on him. “When I was sick, I mean. I used to watch you sagging asleep in that rickety old chair in the corner of your own room so that I wouldn’t wake up alone. You were always there, like some kind of guardian angel Buck, always there in the corner, and all for me.” Bucky’s brow was pulled down in confusion, and Steve had to swallow down a breathy laugh that sounded far too thin for his new frame. “Maybe that ain’t very clear. Look, it was more than just when I was sick. I honestly used to watch you, well, all the time.

“I mean, I flip through my sketchbooks now and it’s all just you, you at the docks, you on the couch, in the kitchen, freezing out on the fire escape...it’s like every time I looked your way I just thought ‘wow, I gotta get this down somewhere, I gotta remember this, I gotta know this moment.’ Every last one, everything you did, I wanted to have every single second of it. And I never even realized…” Steve smiled nervously, lips pulling up shyly at one end, and lightly squeezed Bucky’s hand. Bucky was still looking at him like he’d said he went to the moon or something, but he took a tiny step closer to Steve, and if that wasn’t enough to make Steve’s heart flutter then he didn’t know what would do it.

“I don’t think it ever even occurred to me what I...what I was really feeling ‘til you left. See, it’s like there’s this pull that’s always been there, but it was easy to ignore it when you were right there beside me. I just had to look over and there you were, right as rain, and I was satisfied with that.” Steve laughed. “Hell, lately I...I dunno why I’m saying this, really, but lately I’ve been thinking of it like a dance. Like you taught me—remember when you taught me, remember the song “I’ll be seeing you?” You told me that when people dance, they gotta try and stay the same distance apart—not too fast, not too slow, not pushing or pulling, just holding that position while they spin around forever and ever. We were like that for a long time.

“But when you left, Buck, everything that had been so balanced just came falling down, and I ended up finding myself pulled halfways across the world after you—away from everything I know, every familiar place—because I just couldn’t stand another second of not being right in time with you. Now you tell me, how can that not be love, Buck?”

The touch of Bucky’s hand on his face stole Steve’s breath better than any asthma had ever done, and he almost lost his next words in the rush of sugar and rum and sweat that surrounded him. “You—you really mean that.”

It wasn’t a question, but neither was it a declaration. Steve’s eyes fluttered open—and

had they really been closed?—and he saw that it was, in fact, a challenge. “Yeah, I really do.” 

But the challenge didn’t leave Bucky’s eyes. Steve pressed his cheek into Bucky’s palm, putting his own plea into Buck’s hands. He didn’t know what to do, hadn’t ever done it, didn’t know how. Bucky’s hand slipped around to cup the back of Steve’s head, not pushing or pulling, just combing through the hair at the back of his neck, and he made it clear. Bucky had already pulled before, and now Steve would have to push, and somewhere between the pulling and the pushing they fell straightaway into a whole new dance Steve couldn’t put a name on.

Bucky led with his hands on Steve’s back and neck to guide him and Steve followed, clinging to his shoulders and trying not to fumble the steps. He tried to pay attention, tried to follow along like he was supposed to, but he could feel the fluid press of split lips and Bucky was ahead of him already with his mouth opening to Steve, asking him to do the same. If there was any music it was in the way the snow kept falling in deafening silence, and the scrape of stubble against Steve’s smooth jaw, and the way Steve keened at the first warm reach of Bucky’s slick tongue into his mouth.

And then, Bucky was speaking. “God, you have no idea how long I’ve been thinking about doing that.” 

Steve’s mouth was still open, body buzzing with the feeling of Bucky all along him up and down and in, and he hadn’t even felt Bucky pull away and he still didn’t know what Bucky tasted like and he didn’t know which one felt more like a crime. 

“You ever think about doing it more than once?”

“God yes, you punk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brought to you by the US Army's first true modern combat boots—the perfect addition to the M-1943 Uniform Ensemble. Keep 'em clean.
> 
> -C.B.
> 
> This chapter now has beautiful [art by lem0nfr0ggy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29493408)!! Definitely recommend checking it out :)


	22. Epilogue

**One Year Later**

When Bucky awoke, everything was quiet. It was a rare enough experience that he couldn’t help but find the occasion momentous. 

Even though they were out in the field with the Commandos, sleeping rough while they pushed through yet another days-long mission, the usual noise and motion of their shared camp was absent. There was nothing to signify the other guys breaking up the camp as they got ready to move out, no feet shuffling around in the snow or tent poles clanking together. For once, there was no noise from inside their tent either - no flailing nightmare of nearby gunfire or unyielding metal tables to send Bucky shouting and Steve shaking him awake. Just this once, Bucky had woken up early enough and quietly enough that everything was tranquil and still. Before the war, just waking up to the early morning quiet might have been unremarkable, but it had been so long since they’d experienced anything even resembling peace that Bucky couldn’t help but revel in it now. 

The only sound cutting through the delicate silence was Steve’s breath, falling into a steady, reliable rhythm as he snored softly. Bucky rolled over to look at him and couldn’t keep a slow smile from splitting his face at the sight - their faces were barely inches apart, and he could see every detail of Steve’s hair where it was mussed into an undeniable bedhead, could make out every tiny freckle dotting the bridge of his familiar crooked nose. Every night they spent out in the field, they would lay their bedrolls on opposite ends of their shared tent, but every morning they would somehow wake up practically woven together, Bucky’s cold fingers and toes tucked up against Steve - whether for warmth or for something else, he didn’t know. The one thing he knew for certain was that he would never get tired waking up with Steve tucked in right beside him.

Loath to get up just yet, Bucky buried himself further in the tangle of his and Steve’s intertwined bedrolls, wrapping an arm around Steve’s solid chest and pressing his cold nose into Steve’s neck. He still dreamed about Steve’s old body sometimes, all skinny limbs and sharp edges, but he couldn’t deny the little rush of relief he always felt when he reached for Steve and found him warm and solid and safe beside him. Steve wasn’t sick anymore, wasn’t cold - in fact, he radiated enough warmth for the two of them, now. A blessing, really; since the factory, Bucky always tended to run a little bit cold. 

Steve stirred when the tip of Bucky’s icy nose met his skin, pulling away and taking most of the blankets with him.

“Hey!” Bucky chided, voice rough from sleep, poking at Steve with his admittedly freezing fingers. “What d’you think you’re doing, huh?”

Steve muttered something indistinct before rolling back over to Bucky with his eyes still closed, clearly still clinging to sleep.

“What was that?” Bucky asked, grinning widely in spite of himself. He was hardly a morning person, but he loved Steve like this, soft and warm against the early-morning chill.

“‘S cold, Buck,” Steve grumbled, pouting a little. The sour expression was a familiar one on Steve, though it looked softer on his newly fuller face. Even with a frown tugging at his mouth, he looked so impossibly sweet Bucky thought he could die with it. 

“Dunno how you’re cold,” Bucky griped back, warm fondness bleeding into his voice in spite of himself. “You’re the one hogging all the blankets.” 

“No ‘m not,” Steve protested sleepily, though he finally relented, pulling back the blankets enough for Bucky to wriggle in beside him. Bucky knew he didn’t mind, not really - much as he grumbled about it, Steve always went out of his way to make sure Bucky was okay, as safe and warm as he could possibly be despite the circumstances. Neither of them was too fond of the cold these days. And maybe neither of them had ever been too fond of waking up alone.

As Bucky wrapped his arm back around Steve’s chest and set about tangling their legs together, Steve finally cracked his eyes open a sliver, smiling blearily when they came to rest on Bucky’s face. Bucky didn’t think he’d ever get tired of that either. 

For a moment they stayed there, just relishing the monumental stillness. It felt like a reward, somehow, an offering from the universe as compensation for the years of suffering behind them, for the whirlwind of change they’d all been swept into. Bucky traced his fingers in little patterns on the planes of Steve’s chest, and Steve lifted an arm to drape it around Bucky’s shoulders and tug him closer. Sometime later, there would be a job to do - a march through the icy Alps, a mission to accomplish. For now, though, it was just the two of them, together against it all. 

Like everything perfect, it couldn’t last. The world eventually began waking up around them, the silence invaded by the sounds of tents unzipping and boots crunching in the snow. A few muted voices drifted in through the walls of the tent, the indistinct sounds of the other Commandos probably griping about the cold as they set about preparing to break camp and move out. Bucky closed his eyes and took one last long, deep breath before reluctantly easing up into a seated position, letting Steve’s loose arm fall away from his shoulders and curl around his waist instead. 

“C’mon,” he said, nudging at Steve, who looked like he might still be dozing. “Gonna have to be up soon.” Enveloped in this little bubble of safety and warmth, getting up was very nearly the last thing Bucky wanted to do. There was at least one thing he wanted less, though, and that was for one of the other guys to walk in on them and find Captain America asleep with his arms around his second-in-command. The longer they stayed here, the more that became a possibility.

When Steve still didn’t move, Bucky gently shook his shoulder. “We’re moving out today, right?” 

Steve sighed, opening his eyes again to glare at Bucky for reminding him. “Yeah,” he mumbled. “But if we just don’t get up, we can’t leave…”

Bucky smiled down at Steve, reaching out a hand to play with the soft blond bangs hanging over his forehead. “Tempting,” he said, watching Steve lean into the touch, even though Bucky knew his hands must be too cold to be strictly comfortable. “Might be unseemly for the Captain to sleep through his own mission, but you are the one calling the shots here. We could just, I dunno… miss this train?”

Steve groaned, admitting defeat, and finally started to ease his way upright. “Maybe,” he said with a yawn. “Only, if I don’t go, they might put Dugan in charge.”

Bucky wrinkled his nose. “Fair point,” he said. “Probably best to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

Steve grinned at him, beautiful and bright, before leaning in to press a kiss against his lips. Bucky may have had to goad him into doing it the first time, but since that first kiss Steve had grown bolder, always pausing to show Bucky affection like he’d never get tired of proving it. No matter how many times they kissed, how many ways they touched, Bucky still felt the same rush in his stomach that he had that very first time. When Steve broke away, Bucky, too, had a smile on his face that felt like it rivaled the sun.

Steve’s eyes lingered on that smile for a long moment before finally breaking away. He got to his feet, kicking away the tangled blankets of the bedroll as he went, and started digging through the scattered contents of his pack, only worsening the mess on his side of the tent as he threw around sketchbooks and spare bits of clothing in search of all the pieces of his Captain America uniform.

Bucky snorted, taking a moment to admire the view of Steve bent over and digging around for clean socks before also getting to his feet. “They really shoulda put you through bootcamp, pal,” he said as he reached for his own comparatively neatly folded uniform. “Swear you’d lose your own head if it wasn’t attached.”

Steve was halfway into his pants, but he stopped, precariously balanced on one leg, just to glare at Bucky. “Well, it’s not my fault! This suit’s got so many parts, can hardly keep track of ‘em all.”

“Oh yeah? Then whose fault is it?”

“You were the one who wanted me to keep the outfit,” Steve muttered under his breath. Bucky rolled his eyes and bit back a smile, so full of fondness he could hardly stand it.

Bucky did up his coat while Steve rifled through the tent for the rest of the admittedly complicated and easy-to-lose pieces of his uniform. Even when he finally appeared fully dressed, Steve still looked harried, glancing around like he was missing something important.

“What?” Bucky asked once it was clear Steve wasn’t going to find what he was looking for on his own.

“My shield. Have you seen it?”

Bucky joined in the search, digging through the few remaining articles of Steve’s clothing still scattered around the tent. It didn’t take long for him to locate the shield, lying discarded under a couple of Steve’s dirty undershirts.

“You’re hopeless, you know that?” Bucky said, picking it up. He’d meant to hand it over and get on with packing up, but he paused when he noticed something else on the ground beneath where the shield had been resting - a stack of paper tied neatly together with twine. Steve grabbed for the shield without really looking at it, all his attention on that bundle of paper as he leaned forward to scoop it up. 

Bucky looked to Steve incredulously. “Is that what I think it is? You’ve really got those with you now? In the middle of a mission?”

Steve blushed, the tips of his ears going pink. “Yeah. Your letters,” he said softly. “I’ve still got every one you ever sent me. Carried ‘em all around the States with me. Still carry ‘em everywhere I go, and I’ve never lost even one.” He looked up, a crooked smile pulling at his mouth. “Still think I’m hopeless?”

Bucky gaped at him. “Hopeless would be one word for it, yeah.” He shook his head, awed disbelief mingling with a twinge of sadness as he watched Steve’s hands reverently tuck the bundle of letters into his pack. 

“Wish I still had yours,” Bucky said quietly after a moment. Steve looked over at him, all soft around the eyes like he used to get when he iced Bucky’s bruised knuckles and bandaged him up after fights. “Held onto ‘em as long as I could, but they got lost with all the rest of my stuff when I was… well.”

He couldn’t bring himself to finish the thought. Even alluding to the time he’d spent in captivity made his hands shake, and he quickly tucked them into the pockets of his pants, hoping in spite of himself that Steve hadn’t seen.

His attempt at putting on a brave face didn’t seem to have worked. Steve’s expression went solemn, and in the face of it the gravity of the day, of the mission they were about to attempt, hit Bucky full force. 

“Yeah,” Steve said, “I know. Wish… wish there was a way to get them back.” Steve looked so genuinely sad for a moment that Bucky had half a mind to force a smile and tell him it didn’t matter just to make him feel better, but Steve quickly composed himself. “That’s why we’re doing this, though, right? We’re gonna get to that doctor before he has the chance to get to anyone else.” The derision in his voice seemed barely layered over rage, quiet and smoldering and lethal. If Bucky didn’t know better, he’d almost pity whoever ended up on the receiving end of that anger.

Bucky tensed his jaw and nodded. He’d agreed to this. He’d told Steve he’d follow him anywhere, no matter what. No matter the fear running through him at the prospect of coming face-to-face with the doctor again. No matter the vague sense of dread that had overtaken the early morning calm and now hovered over him, unshakeable.

“You ready?” Steve asked, moving toward the flap of the tent. Just as he was about to pull it open, Bucky stopped him.

“Wait!” 

Steve turned, clearly alarmed at Bucky’s urgency, and Bucky found that he didn’t even fully understand why he was so desperate. He just needed the moment to last.

And as Steve looked at him, gazing with those eyes he’d known all his life, he realized there was something he needed to do. Just in case.

Bucky took a deep breath. “You may have most of my letters, but you don’t have... all of them.”

Steve cocked his head to the side, curious. “What do you mean I don’t have all of them?”

Bucky slowly reached for the breast pocket of his coat. With shaking fingers, he found the edge of the paper tucked inside and carefully drew it out. 

He’d never told Steve about it, the letter written in desperation on the floor of the HYDRA factory, scrawled on the back of the apartment sketch Steve had sent him seemingly a lifetime ago. There hadn’t really been any need - over the past year they’d gotten good at simply communicating to each other the things they needed to say. At least, more or less. But everything Bucky had written in that letter was true. He’d loved Steve forever. And even if he never actually said it out loud, Steve sure as hell deserved the chance to hear it.

“I lost most of your letters,” Bucky said by way of explanation, watching Steve’s eyes go wide as he handed over the mottled piece of paper. “Never lost this, though. Even when things weren’t... looking so good, I still had it on me. That’s when I… well, I had some stuff to say, figured I might not ever get the chance to.”

“Our apartment,” Steve whispered, tracing his fingers over the splotchy remnants of the sketch on the outside of the folded piece of paper. He moved to unfold it, but Bucky stopped him.

“Don’t open it yet, okay? Just - hold onto it for me, would you? Just in case.”

“Buck, nothing’s gonna -”

“Steve. Please.”

Steve gave Bucky a long look, a reassurance clearly on the tip of his tongue, but the flat seriousness in Bucky’s face seemed to stop him.

“Okay,” Steve finally said. “Yeah, of course.” And as Bucky watched, he unzipped a pocket of his uniform, just a bit to the left of the star in the center of his chest, and settled the letter inside. With his words securely tucked above Steve’s heart, exactly where they were always meant to be, Bucky’s dread finally started to bleed away.

“So,” Steve said, putting on a wry smile and moving once more toward the opening of the tent. “You ready to follow Captain America into the jaws of death?”

Bucky did his best to match that sideways smile. “‘Course not. But the little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb not to run away from a fight? I’m ready to follow him.”

Steve nodded, his face softening in the pale light. Bucky thought he looked absolutely breathtaking.

“You know I love you, right?” 

They didn’t say it often, not in so many words. But it was the truth, and in that moment the words fell out of Bucky’s mouth as easily as breathing. Steve gave him a curious look.

“I do. You know I do. You don’t even gotta say it.”

But just before they left the tent and went to meet the day in all of its unknowns, Steve spoke up, his words barely more than a whisper between them.

“I love you too, you know.”

And they stepped out together into the morning sun.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -S
> 
> Can't believe it's actually the end!! Thank you so much to everyone who's stuck with us this far <3 We had a great time writing it and hope that you also had a good time reading! We'd love to hear any thoughts you have about it:) 
> 
> (also, both authors are suckers for hurt/comfort, so we do have a couple of drafts of missing scenes written in the form of hurt/comfort oneshots - those hopefully might go up at some point as well!)


End file.
